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The 

Serio - Comic 
Profession 



By L, J, de BEKKER 



A BOOK FOR WRITERS, 
AND FOR SUCH READ- 
ERS AS MAY BE INTER- 
ESTED IN THEM AND 
THmV CRAFT : : : 




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Book. J, J 



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COPXRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 



COPYRIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 

For the privilege of reprinting certain 
of these little essays, the Author is under 
obligation to the New York Sun, the New 
York Times, the New York Evening Post, 
and the Atlantic Monthly, in which pub- 
lications they originally appeared. 



In the case of articles published here 
for the first time, the Author retains the 
rights to publish and sell in Great Brit- 
ain and in her Colonies, including Can- 
ada and Australia, the right to abridge or 
enlarge, the right to translate into all 
languages, including the Scandinavian, 
first and second serial rights throughout 
all the world, dramatic rights, moving 
picture rights, and any other rights usu- 
ally claimed by a publisher to the detri- 
ment of a writer. He is aware that 
none of these rights will be valuable in 
this particular book, but sets them forth 
as a warning to himself and others. 

L. J. de B. 



THE 



A Book for Writers, and for Such 

Headers as May Be Interested 

in Them and Their Graft 



«# 



By L. J. de BEKKER 



Author: The Stores Encyclopedia of Music and Mu- 
sicians; The University Dictionary of Music 
and Musicians; Compiler: A History of 
the United Sta'es by the Presidents; and 
for Twenty-five Years a Newspa- 
per Man and Publishers Hack 



Ot 



BROOKLYN— NEW YORK 

The Writers' Publishing Co. 



Tti 






Copyrighted for the Author 
by The Writers' Publishing 
Co., Brooklyn-New York, U. 
S. A., 1915. Application for 
entry at Stationer's Hall 
pending. 



Set np and electrotyped. 
First Edition of 1,000 print- 
ed in Angnst, 1915. The 
Writers' Publishing Com- 
pany, Brooklyn-New York, 
U. S. A. 



SEP 221915 

©CI.A411632 



Content* 

Title Page 

Why It's Serio-Comic 7 

Boss Lord's Opinions 18 

Human Interest Real 50 

Makes Verse to Order 60 

The Critic Confesses 68 

Joke's Origin Traced 73 

Becoming a Publisher 80 

Literary Qoldbricks 87 

Story Weeklies Pass 93 

Under the Black Flag 101 

Cost of Making Books Ill 

Defects in Copyright 119 



WHY IT'S SERIO-COMIC 



Middlemen See to It that the Joke Is 
on the Writers. 



"But why Serio-Comic?" 

It is surprising the number of my col- 
leagues who repeated this question when 
I talked over my plans for this little 
book with them. Driven to my last de- 
fense, for the title of a book is impor- 
tant, as it lingers in catalogues long after 
its contents have been forgotten, I made 
use of the Socratic method. 

"Such a title would not suggest to your 
mind a book dealing with the Law in any 
of its branches, would it?" 

"No," admitted the sanest newspaper 
man of my acquaintance. "I remember 
Dr. Johnson's reluctance to brand any 
gentleman with the word 'lawyer,' and I 
confess to you that in my mind, the legal 
profession is unpleasantly associated with 
the duty which renders it most conspicu- 
ous, washing dirty linen in public. It's 
serious enough to the litigants, Heaven 
knows, but I own that if there are any 
comic elements involved in the practice 
of law, I have never been confronted with 
them, except in the pages of 'The Green 
Bag' and allied publications." 



8 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

"Perhaps to your way of thinking, and 
I know your familiarity with Rabelais 
and Erasmus, the Serio-Comic Profes- 
sion is that which, a few centuries ago, 
embraced them all? Taking the Alpha 
and Omega of comedy and seriousness 
from the daily newspapers, you will offer 
in evidence the utterances of the Rever- 
end 'Billy' Sunday, and those of his Emi- 
nence the Cardinal Primate of Belgium, 
and say that the casual reader will glance 
at the title of my book, and mistake it 
for a treatise on theology?" 

"No. I grant you that this might be 
the impression left on a mind influenced 
by such Master Humanitarians as those 
you have named. But there is no more 
reason to suppose that the Reverend Mr. 
Sunday or his followers could be brought 
to look up on 'hitting the trail' as comic, 
than that any one would regard Cardinal 
Archbishop Mercier's pastoral as a ribald 
jest — that is, of course, outside the Ger- 
man universities. And please understand 
that I take religion seriously. That is, 
when I don't my wife does." 

"Pray be assured," I hastened to reply, 
"that no one takes religion more seriously 
than I do. Years ago I was a postulate 
in theology, and although 'dismissed at 
his own request, and for causes not af- 
fecting his moral character/ as the good 
Bishop put it, your loving colleague still 
dips into the Fathers occasionally. But 
In stumbling over the XXXIX Articles 
he found that the dust of this planet in- 
cluded more systems of religion than ever 
came out of Judea. 

"I will admit there are certain comic as 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 9 

well as serious aspects to Medicine. On 
the comedy side I remember numerous 
certain cures for disease it has been our 
duty, as newspaper men, to chronicle. 
Koch's lymph in the Nineties was com- 
mended as a means of warding- off old 
age. It is painful to think how many of 
our friends, now dead, experimented with 
this injection, guaranteed by the discov- 
erer to restore youth as well as to arrest 
decay. No one, lately, has announced a 
panacea, but serums manufactured by 
vivisectionists are said to prevent or cure 
half the ills mankind is heir to. Yes, 
I can see the comic element in Medicine, 
but is it not overwhelmed by the se- 
rious? Do you remember Faust's solilo- 
quy? He tells of the thousands he and 
his father killed, hoping to cure, during 
a visitation of the plague. Has not their 
experience been repeated ten thousand 
times?" 

"But, to me the medical profession is 
the most serious of all," said my friend. 
"I underwent an operation last year, as 
you know, and I have been paying for it 
ever since. No one, I think, after what 
I have been through, could possibly re- 
gard Medicine as a serio-comic profes- 
sion." 

"Then don't you see, my dear fellow," 
I said, mildly triumphant, "that by the 
process of elimination, we have arrived at 
the profession we both adorn? The Serio- 
comic Profession is neither Law, the 
Church, nor Medicine. It can only be 
Letters, and that title is big enough and 
broad enough to cover a multitude of 
sins, including authorship, hack writing, 
journalism." 



10 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

"But, these are all and equally serious, 
and merely branches of one craft," said 
my friend, "so that the man or woman 
who can achieve distinction in one class 
may hope to do so in all three. I have 
tried them all, and if the hardest and 
least remunerative labour on earth is 
comic, I haven't discovered it." 

"It's comic enough, my boy," I retorted, 
'<feut the joke is on you, and on the rest 
of us who are disposed to take ourselves 
and our craft too seriously. We call our- 
selves professional men, and our pay and 
our jobs are those of day-labourers. We 
give the* world the best there is in us, 
and the world is not ungrateful, is, in 
fact, quite tolerant of the defects of our 
qualities. But we let the middleman 
reap whatever of the reward of our la- 
bours comes in money, take what he gives 
us to live on, and then sit by and wonder 
what is to become of us in old age, 
unless the government we criticise but 
take no part in, borrows the Pension Act 
from England. To the middleman we 
are the most comic people on earth, I as- 
sure you, as well as the most profitable." 

Having proved a title clear, the 
Socratic method may be abandoned. The 
purpose of bringing together this little 
group of essays is to pleasantly enlight- 
en writing folk, especially those of the 
younger generation, on subjects not 
usually taught in the classroom, in order 
that the "Bachelors of Arts in Journal- 
ism," of whom some hundreds were in 
process of incubation in various American 
universities in 1915, may have no illusions 
on coming into the keen competition, the 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 11 

continuous excitement of the noblest and 
most fascinating" calling" that ever stimu- 
lated a man's brain or starved his body. 

I agree with my friend, just quoted, 
that journalism, hack writing, and au- 
thorship, are equally serious branches of 
the profession pf letters, and that they 
are more or less interchangeable. Milton, 
Dryden, Defoe, Addison, Steele, Johnson, 
and Goldsmith, were all hacks, and were 
not ashamed of it. One feels reasonably 
sure that if the London Times had been 
published in Milton's time the Areopagiti- 
ca would have appeared in its columns. 
All these men would have been contribu- 
tors to the daily press, had there been 
such a thing. There wasn't, so they 
wrote pamphlets and broadsides, a class 
of vehicle for thought which is again 
coming into favour, or contributed to the 
weekly press. 

From Kipling and Shaw to Maeterlinck 
and Anatole France, there are few emi- 
nent authors these days who have escaped 
newspaper experience. In the office of 
the New York newspaper best loved of 
newspaper men to-day, a list of authors 
would include half the staff. The Presi- 
dent of the Corporation, the Editor-in- 
Chief, the Associate Editor, the City 
Editor, the Assistant City Editor, the 
Managing Editor, the Exchange Editor, 
the Financial Editor, one Editorial Writ- 
er, one Sporting Writer, one Copy Reader, 
the Music Critic, the Dramatic Critic, and 
at least one reporter, have books to their 
credit. Of men whose traditions still 
linger there, the names of William Cullen 
Bryant, John Bigelow, Carl Schurz, Ed- 



12 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

win Lawrence Godkin, and the Garrisons, 
will be familiar to most students of lit- 
erature. 

To instance a single New York morning 
newspaper, books have been published by 
the art critic, the music critic, the "col- 
yum" conductor, a recent dramatic critic, 
the late proprietor, the London corre- 
spondent, and one editorial writer. Karl 
Marx, Bayard Taylor, and John Hay were 
once members of its staff. 

Most of the hacks employed on big dic- 
tionary and encyclopedia jobs in this 
country have profited by journalistic ex- 
perience. So have a majority of magazine 
writers and editors. Those who have 
failed to obtain such training as a news- 
paper office affords, regret it, and with 
reason. 

Journalism is the only branch of the 
profession of Letters in which the as- 
pirant is paid while learning. The easiest 
way to become a journalist is to collect 
suburban news for the paper you like best 
of those printed near your home, and 
turn it in "on space." I began the easiest 
way, at $5 a column, and the first week I 
cleared thirty-five cents above expenses 
for meals, carfares, and other incidentals. 
It did not seem a large sum to me be- 
cause years before my father had spoiled 
me by a five-cent -a- word rate for an 
essay which began, "The Prog is A Bac- 
trian Anymule." 

A suburban reporter sees, every day, 
all the officials in his territory, most of 
the lawyers, the clergy, the physicians, 
the undertakers, and in course of time 
learns to report council meetings, 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 13 

speeches, interviews, sermons, and what 
not to write, until at length he becomes 
a full-fledged member of the city staff, 
ceases to be a journalist, and develops 
into a newspaper man. During- these 
early years he has had more fun and 
earned more money than any friends of 
his own age, in any of the other profes- 
sions. The smaller the community the 
greater the importance w r ith which his 
newspaper connection has invested him. 
Wherever he goes, if he is the right 
kind, he is on a footing of equality with 
the people he meets. But he is sure to 
grow cynical because he sees most of 
the worst side of life; and suspicious, 
because he soon discovers that people are 
really less interested in him than in what 
he may write about them and their af- 
fairs, in a word, what they can get out of 
him. He is having a post-graduate course 
in literse humaniores which will prove 
invaluable in any of the other profes- 
sions, and all the time his friends are 
envying him his abundant leisure, he is 
working* from ten to sixteen hours a day 
under the severest discipline known out- 
side a barracks or a seminary. But his 
income has ceased to rise. 

At thirty he finds other professional 
men of the same age outstripping him in 
the race for life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness, and especially the pursuit 
of money. What has he to look for- 
ward to? One New York editor is said to 
draw $75,000 a year salary. But he began 
life with a competence, with exceptional 
talent, and in a favourable environment. 
New York City has sixty-seven daily 



14 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

papers and hundreds of magazines and 
trade publications. New York also has 
at least fifty large hotels and hundreds 
of small ones, and the same figures hold 
good as to theatres and moving-picture 
houses. There are more cooks in New- 
York drawing $5,000 a year than there 
are editors. There are more players 
drawing $5,000 than there are writers, 
and the combined budgets of the Police 
Department and Board of Education in 
New York exceed the editorial salaries of 
all the newspapers in the United States, 
figured on the per capita basis. And even 
the highest paid editor has less than half 
the income of the highest paid tenor. 

Journalism, as compared with any of 
the other professions, is distinctly un- 
profitable, and the term of employment 
is uncertain. I am writing these words 
in the editorial rooms of a newspaper 
where one man has served fifty-four 
years, beginning as an office boy, where 
the dramatic critic has completed forty- 
three years of usefulness, the music critic 
thirty-one years, and where three men 
in the mechanical department have ex- 
ceeded half a century of service. But 
such a newspaper is exceptional. I have 
seen three managing editors come and 
go from the office of one morning paper 
in less than the same number of years, 
one after twenty-five years of intelligent 
and faithful service. I have seen the 
oldest and the most popular of dramatic 
critics, six of his successors, and three 
of his colleagues on other journals dis- 
missed because they failed to curry favor 
with theatrical managers. There is no 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 15 

organization among the writers and edi- 
tors, seemingly no cohesion or esprit de 
corps. 

I have seen the pay of sub-editors in 
large American cities remain at the level 
they reached fifteen years ago, while the 
printers have advanced their compensa- 
tion three times, and I have read Lord 
Northcliffe's address to the Chicago Press 
Club, in which he spoke of these facts 
with astonishment. 

In London, he explained, a sub -editor 
could only be dismissed on two months' 
notice, whereas an editorial writer would 
require six months, and an important 
executive, a year. Salaries, he explained, 
were adjusted between the proprietor and 
the editorial employees by an organisation 
to which all newspaper men belonged, 
and which regulated such matters with- 
out friction, and at a higher rate of com- 
pensation than was paid either in Chicago 
or New York. 

Hack work, where continuous employ- 
ment is still more uncertain, is in most 
cases paid less than bricklaying. The best 
rate of pay about equals that of a struc- 
tural iron worker, but for steady work on 
a long job the hack will often agree to 
work at the rate of $1 an hour. 

There remain to be considered the emol- 
uments of authorship. Harper & Bros. 
advertised during Mark Twain's lifetime 
that they paid him $1 a word on all the 
"copy" he could furnish, and that this was 
the highest rate of pay on record. The 
publisher of a popular woman novelist 
told me some years ago that he had paid 
her $38,000 in royalties on the first six 



16 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

months' sale of one of her "best sellers." 
I happen to know that when he was 
Speaker of the House of Representatives, 
Tom Reed received $5,000 for signing his 
name to a preface he had not written 
which was to precede a set of books he 
had not seen, but which bore his name as 
editor-in-chief. That, I believe, to be the 
highest rate ever paid for literary work 
in America. 

The successful novelist, and especially 
the successful playwright, if shrewd in 
business matters, may command large 
prices. But they are rare birds, as rare 
as black swans. Two publications have 
advertised a minimum rate of five cents 
a word for fiction, but the minimum rate 
of many fiction magazines is only $10 per 
1,000, which is less than the double space 
rate almost any New York newspaper will 
pay for an exclusive news story. When it 
comes to writing books, profits rise from 
nothing at all to an average of a few hun- 
dred dollars. One man of genuine ability, 
and of international reputation, as some 
of his works are selling in Europe, told 
me he had published ten volumes, his 
average profit on each being $200. 

The comic side, then, of this profession 
we all love and take too seriously, would 
seem to be our inability to get a fair 
share of the price the public gladly pays 
for our work. And yet if it be good work, 
it is priceless. Well did the good old Ro- 
man say: "I have built up for myself a 
monument more lasting than brass, more 
regal than the pyramids." Still, the poor 
devil was frequently in trouble with his 
publishers, the Sosii, and never satisfied 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 17 

with his pay. If one had a talent for 
mathematics, and trustworthy data were 
obtainable, it would be interesting to fig- 
ure out just what a set of verses to 
Lydia would have earned to date on the 
basis of royalty at ten per cent. Would 
not the total exceed the fortune Maecenas 
so wisely administered? 



BOSS LORD'S OPINIONS 



"Sun" Veteran Talks Journalism, 
Past, Present, and Future. 



As a rule no one hears a good word 
about Bosses who have retired. The 
evil they have done is poignantly re- 
membered; the good, if any, is reserved 
for editorial discussion after their 
obituaries have been published. This 
is a story about and by a Boss 
who is the exception. Prom 1880 to 1913 
he ruled with undisputed power, but 
if he did evil, Park Row failed to hear 
of it, although Park Row quickly hears 
all the evil that happens in the world, 
and some that doesn't; and with him 
"Boss" resumed its original significance, 
becoming a title of affectionate familiar- 
ity instead of a term of reproach. News- 
paper men and women who have read 
thus far need not be told that this Boss 
was Chester Sanders Lord, for forty- 
three years a member of the Sun's staff, 
and within the period already named its 
managing editor. Others will be inter- 
ested in learning something of the life- 
work of a man who speaks with author- 
ity of journalistic conditions past and 
present, and who records in these pages 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 19 

his hopes and fears for his profession 
and gives the newspaperman's ideal of 
the newspaper of the future. 

Mr. Lord's father was the Rev. Edward 
Lord, a Presbyterian clergyman, who 
was chaplain of the 110th Regiment of 
New York Volunteers during the Civil 
War. Born in Romulus, N. Y., March 
18, 1850, the future Boss entered Ham- 
ilton College as a student at the age of 
nineteen, and two years later became as- 
sociate editor of the Oswego Advertiser. 
In 1872, he joined the staff of the New 
York Sun, becoming one of Mr. Dana's 
original "bright young men" at a time 
when that great editor habitually gave 
much of his leisure to training the 
younger writers on his paper, often 
taking them to his home for week-end 
visits that he might learn their indi- 
vidual tastes and direct their studies and 
ambitions. Quick to win and hold Mr. 
Dana's confidence, Mr. Lord, who had 
begun work as a reporter, was made 
managing editor December 3, 1880, and 
for seventeen years thereafter and until 
Mr. Dana's death, was his right-hand 
man. The training received from Dana 
he passed on to the younger men on the 
staff, so that before the profession re- 
ceived recognition from the universities 
the Sun became widely known as a 
"School of Journalism," and its gradu- 
ates, the men who had been tempted 
away by offers from magazines or other 
newspapers, proud of their obligation, 
formed a "Sun Alumni Association." 
These Sun graduates joined with the 
regular members of the staff in celebrat- 



20 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

ing Boss Lord's twenty-fifth anniversary 
as managing editor, gave him a break- 
fast at Delmonico's, a loving cup, and 
told him what they thought of him, 
plainly, emphatically. 

William M. Laffan, then chief owner 
of the newspaper, said: "There never 
was a more valuable man in the news- 
paper business, from my point of view, 
than Mr. Lord. It is a supreme satisfac- 
tion to be a,ble to go away with the reali- 
zation that he is in charge." 

E. P. Mitchell, long editor of the Sun, 
said in his tribute to the paper's execu- 
tive: "Every night of his ten thousand 
nights of service has been a Trafalgar or 
a Waterloo. He has fought ten thousand 
battles against the world, the flesh, and 
the devil: the woman applicant, the re- 
fractory citizen, the liar at the other end 
of the wire, and the ten thousand de- 
mons which make up the great army of 
nervous prostration." 

The popularity of the Boss with his 
staff was explained by William J. Hen- 
derson, the music critic who said: "I 
have served under managing editors and 
mismanaging editors, and I have never 
seen an office in which there was so little 
friction as in the Sun's. To my mind 
the best work Mr. Lord does is to make 
a home for his men where the good go 
straight to the front and the poor are re- 
strained and corrected by gentle and 
kindly suggestion." 

On his retirement as managing editor, 
Mr. Lord said to the Evening Post; "For 
a number of years I have been anxious 
to relinquish newspaper work. The du- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 21 

ties of managing editor of a big New 
York newspaper demand unremitting 
alert attention all day and far into the 
night, and I feel that I have had my 
share of them in the thirty-two years I 
have held the place. 

"I have participated actively in eleven 
Presidential campaigns, beginning with 
that of 1872, in which I reported the cam- 
paign speeches of Horace Greeley. I am 
going, despite the protests of all my asso- 
ciates here, for the sole reason that I 
want to relinquish some of my activities." 

More than a year later some newspa- 
permen were discussing the evolution of 
journalism, the prophecies for its future 
uttered by the venerable editor of the 
London Telegraph, Lord Burnham, and 
the radical differences between the press 
of Europe and America in general. The 
passing of the personal element in news- 
paper work seemed most striking to one 
man, the increase in the bulk of the news- 
papers in this country to another, the 
standardization in both news and features 
to a third. John Palmer Gavit said: 

"Personality counts for just as much 
as it ever did. There must be always 
a directing force, and this force, now 
practically unknown to the readers of 
newspapers, may operate without being 
generally felt, even in the offices of pub- 
lication. 

"Take the Sun as an example. As a 
newspaper or as a business enterprise the 
Sun may be greater to-day than ever in 
its history, but not as an Institution, as 
the ideal journal of the average newspa- 
perman. I once believed with most people 



22 SEBIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

that the Sun of by-gone years was the 
sole creation of Mr. Dana. Mr. Dana 
passed away, and the paper went on as 
before. Thereafter I felt sure the per- 
sonality directing the publication must be 
that of Mr. Laffan. Mr. Laffan's death 
made no change in the Sun. Evidently, I 
thought, the real directing force is the 
editor, but when the managing editor re- 
tired we were all made to realize the 
personality was that of Boss Lord. The 
trouble with us all is we are so bound 
to the task of the day in matters relating 
to our own profession we sometimes lack 
perspective." 

"Then let us get Mr. Lord to talk to us 
about newspapers," one of the men said, 
"for he possesses wide knowledge as well 
as personality, and has had time to ac- 
quire perspective." 

But interviewing Mr. Lord in retire- 
ment proved a more difficult task than 
selling stories to him when he was Boss. 
He was in splendid health, and as good 
natured as usual, but professed to be 
more interested in golf than in news- 
papers. He said he had been too busy to 
play during the greater part of his life, 
and was just beginning to realize what 
he had missed. Moreover, having declin- 
ed invitations to write books or maga- 
zine articles on various phases of jour- 
nalism, he couldn't see what fun there 
would be in submitting to an interview. 

His interest, however, is dormant rather 
than dead. He showed a set of the files 
of his newspapers, which occupied the 
entire side wall of a little annex to his li- 
brary, and had just come from a binder. 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 23 

They began in sizes about equal to vol- 
umes of the Nation, and grew in bulk 
until the familiar form of the Sun of to* 
day was disclosed. The first paper in the 
first volume was the first Mr. Lord "put 
to bed" as managing editor, and the last 
edition in the latest volume recorded his 
resignation. After thinking over the pro- 
posed interview, which he was good 
enough to take as a compliment, Mr. Lord 
agreed to answer any questions relating 
to journalism that might be asked, the 
questions to be submitted in, and replied 
to, in writing. Here is the result: 

What was the standard, the ideal, the 
ethical code, if you will, oy which you 
guided the destinies of the New York 
(< 8un" during your long service as its 
managing editor ? 

I do not recall that there was any. 
Certainly none was communicated to the 
staff. If anybody erred he was reproved. 
Instruction or direction by maxim or by 
precept is instruction in the obvious and 
we avoided the obvious. There were no 
codes of ethics of profound theories or 
mysterious policies or editorial councils. 
Not an index expurgatorius or a cata- 
logue of "don'ts," not even a style card 
was pasted on the walls any more than 
were the Ten Commandments or Thom- 
as Jefferson's ten rules of life. I do not 
know why we avoided the rules habit; 
probably because we started that way 
and never reformed. You see, in the first 
eighteen years of Mr. Dana's editorship 
it was a four-page newspaper and criti- 
cal supervision of every paragraph was 
possible. Moreover, there being no early 



24 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

newspaper trains, we began printing at 
four o'clock instead of at one, as now, 
and had three more hours for preparation 
and revision. Less necessity for rules and 
regulations existed, whereas present-day- 
editions five or six times as large pre- 
pared in much shorter time compel or- 
ganisation and discipline. We did seek a 
standard of literary excellence. Verbal 
tediousness was hooted out of the place. 
A nicety of literary expression was en- 
couraged, as was that quality that some 
one has called "the art of producing rich 
effects by familiar words." Mr. Dana was 
responsible for the Sun's literary excel- 
lence. He loved literature. He appre- 
ciated and praised good writing and he 
inspired the staff to enthusiasm for it. 

I know, of course, that in your early 
years in journalism, newspapers were 
largely the expression of one man's per- 
sonality. This was true of the "Sun" un- 
der Dana, of the"Times" under Raymond, 
of the "Herald" under Bennett. I think it 
was true in more recent times of the 
"World" until, or perhaps after, Mr. Pu- 
litzer "became blind. But it has seemed 
to me that in the last few years the per- 
sonality of the directing genius has been 
obscured. The average newspaper reader 
of to-day knows nothing of the men 
whose opinions he reads, and can identify 
by name only the owners of the journals. 
Are the actual heads of newspapers to- 
day men of less force than their prede- 
cessors, or is this difference due to the 
repressive influences of the corporations 
by which most newspapers are owned? 

The reputations of the group of editors 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 25 

so well known fifty years ago arose 
chiefly because of their very great abil- 
ity as newspaper men; nevertheless, it 
must be conceded that circumstances also 
played a conspicuous part. The present 
generation little appreciates how our Civ- 
il War took hold of the people and how 
earnestly and how violently public opin- 
ion was expressed. Men quarrelled with 
a bitterness otherwise unknown in Amer- 
ican politics. The war Republicans or 
Unionists were for fighting the war to a 
finish at any cost of life or property. 
The peace Democrats or Copperheads 
wanted the war stopped then and there 
on any terms. The peace Republicans 
sought to stop the fighting and talk it 
over to a settlement. The war Democrats, 
while disposed to continue the contest, 
were angry critics of the conduct of the 
war and of the Lincoln Administration. 
The newspapers fought each other with 
savage ferocity > and the editors, inspired 
by the magnitude and the importance of 
events, involving as they honestly believ- 
ed the very life of the republic, were 
stimulated to the very limit of mental 
exaltation. It was thus that Greeley, 
Raymond, Marble, Curtis, Brooks, Ben- 
nett, Bryant, Bowles, Watterson, and 
«<hers became known as public cham- 
pions. They were made conspicuous by 
the very greatness of the events that in- 
spired their minds and their pens. They 
had their cause just. The European war 
ia just now arousing thought, but other- 
wise we must admit that present-day oc- 
currences have not furnished the mental 
inspiration that marked the great events 



2Q SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

of fifty years ago. The new freedom of 
1914, unlike that of 1862, was born with- 
out agony or anguish in twilight sleep — 
and neither its parent nor the public yet 
knows whether it was born alive or dead. 

Nor was it alone by their editorship 
that these great editors were known. 
Greeley was a popular lecturer on tem- 
perance, agriculture, and the abolition of 
slavery. Raymond was active in poli- 
tics, having been Lieutenant-Governor of 
the State and a party leader. George 
William Curtis was better known per- 
haps as a lecturer than an editor. Bryant 
was known as a poet wherever poetry 
was read. Dana had been managing 
editor of the Tribune for ten years, and 
he was Assistant Secretary of War dur- 
ing half of the great struggle. He was 
already a conspicuous public man when 
he bought the Sun. The elder Bennett's 
reputation rested quite as much on his 
business ability, his ownership of the 
Herald, as on editorship. He attracted 
attention, to be sure, by his audacious 
attacks on public men and on members 
of society, but he was also an advertis- 
ing genius. He was the first to develop 
the use of the small advertisement. He 
invented methods of news-getting. He 
used the pioneer Atlantic Cable freely, 
and thereby gained reputation for hav- 
ing "the best foreign news," a reputa- 
tion that has lived to this day, although 
not for twenty years has the Herald 
had any better foreign news than several 
other newspapers. 

Moreover, fifty years ago, the literary 
impulse was a conspicuous factor in pub- 



SERO-COMIC PROFESSION 27 

lie thought. It was inspired by the lit- 
erary exaltation of the Victorian era. 
The editors were lovers of literature, 
students of literature, writers of litera- 
ture, and they constantly urged their 
staffs to increased literary efforts. Mar- 
ble, Raymond, Dana, Bryant, Curtis, and 
others made reputations for literary ex- 
cellence in journalistic work that would 
not to-day attract so much attention, 
for literary excellence, while commended, 
is not so much insisted on, encouraged 
or taught in newspaper offices, as it was 
forty years ago. 

But we must not suppose for an in- 
stant that our best editors of to-day 
are not in every respect equal to those 
of fifty years ago. The old-time editors 
attracted attention for reasons I have 
mentioned and also because it was the 
practice to exploit them by name — a thing 
not now done. Even the newspapers 
themselves were known by the names of 
the men at their head. It was "Greeley's 
Tribune" and "Bennett's Herald" and 
"Dana's Sun" and so on. They were 
good advertisers of themselves, and, then 
as now, a good thing well advertised 
got reputation and recognition. To-day, 
for whatever reason I know not, the 
names of editors-in-chief and managing 
editors are excluded from the newspa- 
pers with an unanimity that seems born 
of intention. Their work is anonymous. 
Other contributors are exploited. The 
writers of special articles for the Sun- 
day editions, the dramatic and the musi- 
cal critics, some of the book reviewers, 
the war correspondents, even the writers 



28 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

of baseball games and prize fights and 
the elucidators of bridge, whist, and draw 
poker, are permitted to put their names 
at the head of their articles. Not so 
the editors, although they are doing the 
best newspaper work ever done. For 
there can be no comparison in general 
excellence between the newspaper of to- 
day and the newspaper pf any other pe- 
riod. The editorial articles of fifty years 
ago may have been written with greater 
literary finish, but with that quality all 
super-excellence ends. The unlimited size 
of present-day editions permits of the 
broadest consideration of important 
events and of a vastly greater number of 
topics. Methods of news-gathering have 
been improved and systematized, and 
there are far greater facilities for gath- 
ering information. The staffs are much 
larger and incomparably better organized. 
Probably eight times as much money is 
spent on the preparation of the edition. 
The expository editorial article has large- 
ly taken the place of the argumentative 
and the vituperative product, and much 
more fairness and honesty prevail in the 
treatment of the politics of the day. All 
opinions are reserved for the editorial 
page. Raw reporters are not permitted 
to spread their comments through the 
news columns as was their wont in for- 
mer times. 

When you retired from active news- 
paper work, I had oeen reading your pa- 
per twenty -five years. I confess to you 
that for many of those years there was 
out one other newspaper in the world I 
liked as well — "Figaro" — and even then I 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 29 

realized that a "Figaro" in New York or 
London was impossible. But the ideal 
newspaper is an ever-recurring topic. I 
have seen poor old Dr. Perry listen pa- 
tiently to the long discussions on this 
subject in the early morning hours. I 
have heard it talked about during lulls 
at the copy desk. I know that it has 
never existed, that it does not exist now, 
for the reason that there is never time 
to make a journal a thing of perfection, 
but I should like to hear from you 
something of the great newspaper of the 
future. Will it be "blanket sheet" or 
"tabloid" in size? Will the news be clas- 
sified as in the old days, by departments, 
as sporting and financial news still is, 
or will crazy-Quilt "makeups" continue. 
Will there be an editorial page? Will 
police news, divorce-court proceedings, 
campaign personalities, and the press 
agent be eliminated? 

Likely enough, you enjoyed Figaro 
because it minimized routine news and 
sought topics of national importance or 
of literary excellence only. The Paris 
newspapers have larger circulations in 
proportion to population than those of 
any other city. They differ from editions 
in other cities in that they make ordinary 
news incidental and have not editorial 
pages in the sense that we have them. 
Some of them inject editorial opinions 
in all parts of the sheet, carrying a run- 
ning comment through a news article. 
They might perhaps be called little daily 
magazines. Some- of them are political 
sheets only; others treat almost exclu- 
sively of literary topics. Not any of 



30 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

them tries to print what we call "a com- 
plete newspaper," tries to print some- 
thing about everything in sight, as pres- 
ent-day American newspapers are at- 
tempting to do. It may be you liked 
the Sun of 1890 for similar reasons. It 
had an editorial page unprofaned by rou- 
tine or any other kind of news— for Mr. 
Dana wanted the news printed elsewhere 
— a page given over to discussion and to 
literary articles, embellished with all 
sorts of odd and interesting things that 
blew in from anywhere. Its news columns 
exalted the highly important. They were 
not so keen for "The Stiletto in Stanton 
Street" or "the Bludgeon on the Bowery," 
or minor news events, unless those events 
contained something queer, strange, or/ 
unique. In a recent address Dr. Talcott 
Williams, dean of the Pulitzer School of 
Journalism, praised the Sun of about 
that time for originating the short story 
in daily journalism; but the story was 
a news story of fact embellished like a 
story of fiction. Nevertheless, the Sun 
of twenty or thirty years ago could not 
be popular to-day. It was incomplete, 
save as to its editorial page. It gave 
about ten columns only to all the news 
of the day, including the financial and 
commercial markets, the shipping, and 
the real estate, whereas the morning 
newspapers of to-day give sixty or sev- 
enty columns to this kind of matter. 

Your yearning for the ideal newspa- 
per is not likely to be satisfied. The ideal 
or the complete newspaper is unattain- 
able. You could not find ten readers to 
agree as to what constitutes newspaper 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 31 

superiority, The lawyer wants extensive 
reports of court proceedings, the text of 
judicial decisions, and the court calendar 
in full — without these his newspaper is 
incomplete. The real-estate man wants 
recorded the sale of every inch of ground 
and every building, as well as every mort- 
gage lien and satisfaction of mortgage — 
and so on, everybody demanding com- 
pletion of detail of the things that in- 
terest him personally or affect his busi- 
ness. The theatrical and musical peo- 
ple, the department-store managers, the 
art folks, the thousands who speculate 
in stocks or commodities, the politicians, , 
the charity institutions, the women and 
men of society, the promoters of educa- 
tion, the reform associations, and the vast 
multitude engrossed in baseball and other 
sports, they all want to read about their 
own affairs, and they care mighty little- 
about the affairs of the others. The 
newspaper that approaches the ideal or 
approaches completion must please all 
these elements, and it is the attempt to 
please everybody by printing something 
about everything that has so enormous- 
ly enlarged our sheets. The old-fashion- 
ed newspaper sought to make every ar- 
ticle interesting to everybody. Present- 
day policy is to give large attention and 
generous space to everybody's interests 
and everybody's doings. We record the 
transfer of a policeman, the granting of 
a vacation to a fireman, the name of ev- 
ery person found eligible to teach in the 
public schools, every little detail affect- 
ing every city employee. We print pages 
of court calendars and real -estate trans- 



32 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

fers, the arrival and departure of every 
boat, however small, as well as column 
on column of market reports. 

This tendency toward expansion seems 
likely to continue rather than to lan- 
guish, and it seems safe to predict yet 
larger-sized newspapers. This policy, 
greatly assisted by its reduction in price, 
has carried the Times to its present con- 
spicuous success. No other newspaper 
has so consistently endeavoured to please 
so many varied interests even at the ex- 
pense to itself of so many dreary col- 
umns — for its management must know. 
as every newspaper man knows, that 
routine news is mighty uninteresting 
stuff. Nevertheless, if anything approach- 
ing newspaper perfection is to be achiev- 
ed in this direction, yet greater expansion 
must precede it. The news will have to 
be classified yet more carefully, addi- 
tional departments must be created, edi- 
torial forces enlarged, and much more 
money spent in preparing editions. That 
the general tendency is toward expan- 
sion is attested by its general adoption 
not only in New York, but in all Ameri- 
can cities, for almost all daily newspapers 
of any account have increased fivefold or 
more in size in the last twenty years. 

An obvious result of continuing this 
expansion must be to lessen the number 
of newspapers, for the very great expense 
involved threatens the weaker sheets and 
prohibits the establishment of new ones. 
At the moment the seven morning news- 
papers in this town are imitating each 
other. They are printing the same news 
collected from the same sources and in 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 33 

nearly the same newspaper vocabulary. 
They differ little except in editorial-page 
utterances; and on the greater public 
questions there is little disagreement 
there. Latterly, practically all of them 
have favoured some sort of tariff change, 
favoured the Currency bill, opposed the 
Shipping bill, opposed the election of 
Whitman, opposed Roosevelt, opposed 
Tammany. By what exaltation of the im- 
agination can we picture the starting of 
another newspaper in imitation of these 
seven sheets? 

Of course, it is possible that some time 
somebody with nuggets and nerve may 
start the other kind of a newspaper — 
four, six, never exceeding eight pages in 
size; imitating some of the pleasing fea- 
tures of the Paris sheets; giving three 
columns instead of three pages to the 
routine reports of the war, but omitting 
no important fact; discarding all matter 
not interesting or of national importance; 
counting it mighty big news that is worth 
more than half a column; trying to make 
every article interesting to every reader; 
making it typographically easy to read 
and distinctive in appearance; letting it 
be merry with the merrymakers, cheerful, 
joyous, and wholesome, and with an edi- 
torial page fair and just and interesting. 
It is just possible that such a newspaper 
might succeed. Obviously the next new 
newspaper to succeed must be something 
entirely different from the newspaper of 
to-day. 

The size, shape, and typographical ap- 
pearance of newspapers are matters of 
personal preferment. The eight-column 



34 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

sheet just now popular seems as practical 
as any yet used — only I wish they would 
paste the pages together as the Evening 
Post does. First thought shoull be to 
make the newspaper easy to read, and 
that thought should influence the ar- 
rangement of headlines and typographical 
appearance quite as much as fix the size. 
It is easier to turn over a few pages than 
many; easier to scan the articles on one 
large page than on two small ones. The 
Sunday supplements of smaller-sized 
pages, just now coming into use, are dis- 
tinctly hard to handle unless pasted — and 
they are not — for the pages are all over 
the floor ere reading is fairly begun. 

And the same motto, "Make it easy to 
read," with the addition "easy fco under- 
stand," applies yet more forcibly to the 
reading matter itself. The other day a 
morning paper in a London cable said: 
"Wheat sold at 60 shillings a quarter in 
the corn market to-day." That sentence 
gave the mind of the reader a jolt and 
a pause in the attempt to translate shil- 
lings and quarters into cents and bushels. 
Pew American readers are familiar with 
foreign languages, hence all words, as 
well as quotations, in the French or the 
German or other tongues should be made 
into English. Pounds, marks, and francs 
should be computed into dollars and cents. 
And who knows where in this State the 
Thirty-fifth Congress District is? Why 
not call it the Syracuse district? Or who 
can tell where in this city the Sixteenth 
Precinct police station may be? Why not 
identify it as the Mercer Street station? I 
appreciate that all this is what the teach- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 35 

ers of journalism must call "elementary," 
nevertheless it is attention to hundreds 
of just such small details that makes the 
newspaper easy to read and easy to un- 
derstand. 

It has been said that a great event 
like the present European war changes 
the character of the newspapers as well 
as it changes the people. Has anything of 
the sort come under your observation? 

I am mindful of very great changes in 
public thought, and in newspaper expres- 
sion of that thought. The most alert 
mental acrobats of newspaperdom are 
the makers of the Sunday supplements 
and the Saturday evening special pages. 
Naught that is new in metropolitan life 
escapes these alert gentlemen. Public 
thought and public talk are reflected in 
their columns quicker than anywhere 
else. They exploit with marvellous celer- 
ity every discovery in science, in medi- 
cine, in mechanism — every triumph of 
surgery, of art, of literature — every 
great personal achievement of man or 
woman. Not anywhere else are the signs 
of the times so quickly and so accurate- 
ly reflected. In the winter one year ago 
they were alive to social and moral con- 
ditions. It did not escape their notice 
that the few remaining old-fashioned 
mothers and the church were denounc- 
ing the new dances as sensual and de- 
moralizing, and that these same mothers 
and this same church proclaimed against 
the dress of our wives and our daughters 
as being immoral and indecent. Our 
theatres were producing sex plays, in 
which details leading toward vice were 



36 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

presented with allurement and sugges- 
tion; and some of our moving-picture 
shows were actually closed by the police. 
Comment demonstrated that the novels 
most read were those on the everlasting 
sex question, and that sex relations were 
described and discussed with a freedom 
that would not have been tolerated fifty 
years ago. The white-slave agitation was 
conspicuous, and marriage and divorce 
were under free discussion. 

These things are not uppermost this 
year. The same conditions exist, but 
they are taken for granted. We are 
thinking and reading and writing of 
something more serious. The energy of 
newspaper effort is directed toward the 
European conflict of armies. 

I have read constantly and with, very 
great attention the American newspaper 
presentation of this war — and with su- 
preme pride in that newspaper achieve- 
ment. Almost every day we hear the 
sneering remark, "You cannot believe 
anything the newspapers say about the 
war." To which I reply: You can believe 
almost everything they say in their news 
columns, and you may read their com- 
ments and inferences with assurance that 
they have not falsified facts in reaching 
conclusions. It has been difficult to ob- 
tain quick reports of military movements 
or of battles, for the reason that corre- 
spondents have not been permitted to 
accompany the armies, and censors have 
over-censored all information; yet, re- 
viewing the months of conflict, we fail 
to recall any serious misrepresentation 
of facts or conditions, We understand 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 37 

with substantial accuracy how many men 
each Power has in the field, where the 
armies are gathered, what the losses 
have been, the reserve resources in men, 
munitions, and money; also, just what 
advantage has been gained and lost. Our 
newspapers have spared neither effort 
nor expense. They present the news 
from each national capital with equal 
impartiality, printing every official re- 
port exactly as it is given out. In pre- 
sentation of the causes of the war and 
of responsibilities for the declarations of 
war, the American newspapers have ex- 
hausted almost every resource for ob- 
taining the intelligent opinions of emi- 
nent statesmen, learned jurists, distin- 
guished authors and writers, educators, 
cabinet ministers — the best minds rep- 
resenting all the nations in conflict. The 
spirit of fairness was never more mani- 
festly attested than in the throwing open 
of newspaper columns in indefinite num- 
ber to anybody of any account who had 
anything to say for any nation. I do 
not recall any stupendous event, either 
within memory or in history, that has 
been so voluminously, so fairly, so hon- 
estly recorded. 

And we may be sure that this war 
will bring other great changes to news- 
papers and to the people. Never has been 
recorded such destruction of sentiment, 
such destruction of principle, of honesty, 
of civilization, of property, or such havoc 
of human life. Throughout Europe all 
progress has ceased. The great univer- 
sities are virtually closed, that the stu- 
dents may go forth to kill each other. 



38 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

Artists, authors, musicians, teachers, 
skilled artisans, professional men — men 
who make for the upbuilding of intel- 
lectual life and for the refinement of 
social life, men who represent what per- 
haps was the highest civilization ever 
known — the very best men in England, 
Prance, and Germany are killing each 
other by the hundreds of thousands. In 
what condition of mind is the world to 
emerge from this awful destruction? 
What sort of an era is to follow the re- 
turn of peace? 

I believe that the newspapers will 
largely influence this change. They give 
us our first impressions of great events, 
and first impressions are likely to be 
lasting. They reach the people to an 
extent not approached by any other in- 
fluence, for everybody of any account 
reads them. Almost every farmer now 
takes a daily newspaper at trifling cost 
more than he once paid for his weekly ; 
and in the cities the daily newspaper 
goes into nearly every home. The circu- 
lation of newspapers has increased enor- 
mously of recent years, largely in conse- 
quence of the reduction in price, for 
throughout the entire country almost all 
sell for one cent a copy. This great in- 
crease is obviously among persons of 
moderate means. More than ever before 
the newspaper reaches a" vast number of 
persons who do not by habit think over 
much, but who in a way let the newspa- 
per editors think for them, and who in- 
voluntarily accept the newspapers' views 
on current topics. It has been conceded 
these many years that the printed word 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 39 

has far greater influence than the spoken 
word, and it has been recognized, also, 
that almost everything we read has its 
direct or its unconscious influence. 

And I perceive very great encourage- 
ment and very great promise for the edu- 
cational progress of our whole country 
in the vast improvement in late years in 
the newspapers of our lesser-sized cities. 
News-gathering has become systematized 
until it is reduced almost to routine. The 
telephone has brought happenings 500 
miles away within reach of the reporter's 
ear. The modern printing press admits 
of the printing of an indefinite number 
of pages in any edition. Type-setting 
machines have increased the composi- 
tor's product hourly six or eight fold. 
Railroad schedules are arranged to facili- 
tate newspaper circulation. Newspapers 
in our smaller cities, by utilizing this 
modern progress, are producing editions 
that may truthfully be said to approach 
in general excellence as well as in size 
the newspapers of the big cities. In 
editorial-page ability and in news collec- 
tion and arrangement the Hartford 
Coutant and the Springfield Republican 
compare most favourably with their New 
York contemporaries. There is nothing 
in Boston much better than the Provi- 
dence Journal. The Utica Press is of ex- 
ceeding excellence in every column, and 
it has the genuine metropolitan flavor. 
The Syracuse Post-Standard compares 
very favourably with any newspaper 
printed anywhere. In Rochester the 
Chronicle and the Herald and the Ex- 
press are splendid specimens of newspa- 



40 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

per-making. And we might continue 
thus across the Continent, enumerating 
scores of daily newspapers of supreme 
merit, some of those printed in Detroit, 
Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Louisville, and 
Cincinnati being in the very front rank. 
These newspapers printed in cities of 
third and fourth size have led all others 
lately in proportionate improvement. 

One of my colleagues, a man who has 
faithfully served the same newspaper as 
editor and critic more than forty years, 
said to me the other day that his ideal 
newspaper could only be achieved by an 
endowment of $5,000,000. He believed it 
would be possible on the income of that 
sum to publish a small journal, say of 
the size of the "Sun" twenty-five years 
ago, which would be wholly free from 
any of the objections he finds to the 
average newspaper of to-day — free from 
political influence, advertising patronage; 
independent in all things. He thought 
such a publication would eventually be- 
come self-supporting, but that, without 
an income of, say, $250,000 a year as- 
sured, it must fall by the wayside. I 
confess to holding that whatever is worth 
reading the public will pay for, and that 
I see nothing irreconcilable in the adap- 
tation of the newspaper as a business en- 
terprise to loftier ideals. I know there 
are newspapers now with lofty ideals. 
Will it ever, in your opinion, be neces- 
sary that a newspaper have an endow- 
ment to hold the respect of its readers? 
Is there not, on the other hand, reason to 
fear that a newspaper that needed an en- 
dowment would need readers still worse? 



SEftlO-COMW PROFESSION 41 

This golden dream of the ideal en- 
dowed newspaper has disturbed many an 
editor's slumber. It is not well founded. 
It assumes that in mysterious existence 
somewhere are men who, for fabulous 
compensation, could create better news- 
papers than now exist, write better arti- 
cles, criticise more intelligently, get more 
important information. But where in- 
deed are these geniuses to be found? 
To-day's newspapers would be equally 
glad to shower them with gold — do show- 
er with gold statesmen, clergymen, ar- 
tists, novelists, captains of industry, any 
one who can transfer the genius of his 
intellect to the printed page. To-day's 
newspapers employ the very best writers 
to be found. Nearly a score of our most 
popular novelists have contributed to the 
newspaper literature of the war. The 
men contributing war history and de- 
scription to the magazines, the men who 
are writing the books on the war, are 
the very men who went to the front for 
the daily newspapers. It was equally 
true of the Spanish-American War. The 
daily newspaper correspondents became 
the magazine article writers and the his- 
torians of the conflict. The newspapers 
spare not money when results are sought. 
The endowed newspaper of unlimited 
means might indeed compete with them, 
but it is doubtful whether it could ex- 
cel, especially if conducted under present- 
day newspaper methods. If made en- 
tirely different from the seven morning 
newspapers now so nearly alike it might 
succeed. 

To the thought of an endowed news- 



42 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

paper of supreme excellence is attached 
usually the notion of selling it for five 
or ten cents a copy. People will pay 
more for a really superior article, rea- 
sons the dreamer — the journal of "loftier 
ideals" will command readers of such ad- 
vanced intelligence that price will not be 
considered. Yet the history of news- 
papers, and of all published literature, for 
that matter, proves to the contrary. Al- 
most without exception the high-priced 
newspapers and the higher-priced maga- 
zines are those of lesser circulation. Nor 
does there seem to be any special clamour 
on the part of the public for "loftier 
ideals" in journalism, if we may judge 
from the practical test of circulation; 
for sheets of cheapest literary quality 
and most slovenly moral expression and 
most fantastic typography, in Paris and 
in London, as well as in America, sell 
in far greater numbers than any others 
— and he is an honest editor indeed who 
resists the temptation to imitate them. 

Oswald Garrison Villard at the news- 
paper conference at Lawrence, Kan., 
noted some of the chief complaints of 
the public against the newspapers of to- 
day. I present them to you, as he stated 
them, purposely omitting his comments, 
in order to ask you what measures will 
be taken in the newspaper of the future 
to make such complaints not merely un- 
justifiable, but impossible: 

(1.) The persistent refusal to right a 
wrong done editorially. 

(2.) The suppression of news for profit, 
or "because of fear of some powerful in- 
terest. 






SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 43 

(3.) The laying of false emphasis upon 
the news because of criminal or un- 
worthy motives. 

(4.) An amazing and often criminal 
lack of accuracy in reporting. 

(5.) Indefensible attacks upon public 
men coupled with shocking invasion of 
privacy of both public and private in- 
dividuals from which not even women 
are exempt. 

(6.) Deliberate falsification of news and 
facts. 

(1.) Almost all newspapers are honest. 
It is the dishonest newspaper only that 
refuses to make right an obvious wrong. 
The editor who deliberately falsifies can 
hardly be expected to eat his own words. 
The public that knows him to be falsi- 
fying and complains of that falsification 
might find its remedy in purchasing the 
product of an honest editor. 

(2.) Very little suppression of real 
news for profit or for any other reason 
ever came under my observation, and 
I believe that very little of it exists. The 
man who worms out social or business 
secrets and offers to suppress them for 
a price is a blackmailer and a criminal 
and he should be sent to jail. 

(3.) This practice exists among dis- 
honest editors only, and it is not com- 
mon. There are a few dishonest editors, 
I am sorry to say, just as there are a 
few dishonest lawyers and physicians 
and plumbers, but all editors should 
not be judged by the dishonesty of a few 
any more than all bank cashiers should 
be judged by the one cashier who steals, 
or all clergymen by the one clergyman 
who goes astray. The American news- 
papers, with very few exceptions, do not 



44 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

falsify or suppress or pervert news. 

(4.) Whatever conditions of this sort 
exist are in consequence of the employ- 
ment of cheap inexperienced reporters, 
or inattention or lack of supervision or 
of general indifference by the office staff. 
Inaccurate reporting is absolutely inex- 
cusable and unpardonable, and it should 
not be tolerated — is not tolerated in well- 
managed offices. Nevertheless, eternal 
vigil is required to prevent it. The com- 
bination of a self-opinionated, careless 
young reporter and a sleepy copy-reader 
may create all kinds of havoc of fact. 

(5.) This sort of villany is gradually 
disappearing — is curing itself. Very much 
less of it exists. There is much less 
virulent attack on public men, less po- 
litical misrepresentation, less unfairness 
towards political rivals. It has been a 
question always whether excessive vitu- 
peration and venomous attack have as 
much influence with the public as tem- 
perate reasoning and the expression of 
righteous conclusions; and present-day 
tendency is decidedly towards modera- 
tion. Growing sentiment against the in- 
vasion of private life and the home is 
plainly to be seen. Public opinion is 
largely influential in this change, for the 
newspapers are quick to catch the public 
will. The late Whitelaw Reid once said, 
in truth: "The thing always forgotten 
by the closest critics of newspapers is 
that the newspapers must be measurably 
what their readers make them, what their 
constituents call for and sustain." 

(6.) Deliberate falsification of news and 
of facts does not exist in sufficient abun- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 45 

dance to call for consideration. Such fal- 
sification is so easily refuted and exposed 
that even dishonest editors rarely resort 
to it. 

One of the products of the evolution of 
journalism in the last twenty-five years, 
one in which you have no share that I 
am aware of, out of which I know you, 
have been a keen observer, is what, for 
lack of a better name, we will call Yellow 
Journalism. If circulation means power it 
cannot be denied that these newspapers 
are powerful, but frankly, is their power 
chiefly exercised for good or for evil? 

The exaggeration or hysteria of the 
sensational newspaper may not be of im- 
mediate harm to the young" person who 
reads it casually. But suppose she ac- 
quires the habit of reading it every day. 
Because of her employment or her en- 
vironment she has not time or oppor- 
tunity to read anything else. It becomes 
her mental nourishment. She comes to 
think and to talk in its exaggerated, in- 
flamed, feverish language. Its typogra- 
phical breathless announcements startle 
her — fill her with feverish emotions. She 
becomes a pessimist, for in the sensa- 
tional sheet the good and the true and 
the normal are ignored. "Virtue go hang; 
vice is the thing that attracts atten- 
tion," is the motto, and the maiden is 
fed on the abnormal, the unusual, on 
mental monstrosities, on exaggerations 
and fancies. Some one said recently that 
ten years of cheap reading had changed 
the British from the most stolid nation 
of Europe to the most hysterical and 
theatrical. Everybody is influenced by 



46 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

what they read, young people especially, 
and habitual cheap reading must of ne- 
cessity produce cheap thinking and cheap 
expression of thought, and consequently 
cheap moral conduct. It is in this direc- 
tion that the sensational press and the 
cheap literature of the day have their 
chief influence. Cheap literature pro- 
duces cheap mentality, and consequently 
a cheap people. 

It Is a curious fact that following the 
recent years' outburst of sensational jour- 
nalism, sensational magazine writing, and 
sensational novel printing has come 
something of a change in the people. 
Many persons believe that the church is 
losing influence; that the clergy is hesi- 
tating and stricken with mental inde- 
cision; that morality is less rigid. Others 
profess to think that the theatres no 
longer inspire or instruct, that the old- 
fashioned moral drama is succeeded by 
moving-picture shows, by illuminations, 
by unholy dancing, weavings, posturings, 
and spectacles that appeal to the vision 
rather than to the intellect. Study clubs 
have been turned into bridge-whist par- 
ties, and afternoon teas into tango tangles. 
The time-honoured dinner party, that 
clearing house of society, that regulator 
of refinement, is rushed and reduced that 
all may hurry to the dancing floor. The 
after-theatre supper, once sought and 
enjoyed among quiet and dainty sur- 
roundings, is now gormandized in a blaze 
of electricity on the fringe of a dancing 
floor by breathless perspiring people who 
drop fork and spoon with a clatter when 
the music resumes and embrace each 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 47 

other in the fox-trot, the clothes-pin 
clinch, the crab crawl, the pelican pause, 
the squab squeeze, or any other step that 
under any other name would lose none of 
its sensual sweetness. Col. Ed. James 
used to tell of a procession up in St. Law- 
rence County in celebration of a new 
sehoolhouse, in which one transparency 
read ''Education done it." Can it be said 
of these present-day influences that 
"Cheap reading influenced them"? 

Truth is, the people want sensational 
news and sensational articles, and this 
is attested by the large circulations of 
the saffron sheets. But it is an encour- 
aging sign of the times that the lurid 
press is toning down; that the sensa- 
tionalism of the worst offenders is be- 
coming more apparent in the typographi- 
cal effect of headlines than in the read- 
ing matter under them — for the news 
reading matter is pretty much the same 
nowadays in all newspapers. The re- 
write men have not entirely ceased their 
activities or their embellishments, but 
they are more consistently sticking to 
the truth, are not distorting in spectacu- 
lar language as was their way ten or 
fifteen years ago. It is the headline 
architect who is now conducting the big 
business of the sensational press. 

And what of the future ? Are newspa- 
pers to ~be "better or worse, more influ- 
ential or less so? 

I anticipate and I predict yet greater 
excellence, influence, and circulation for 
our newspapers. They are already tak- 
ing the place of many kinds of litera- 
ture. The Saturday evening editions and 



48 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

the Sunday literary supplements print 
new fiction by the popular authors. They 
exploit and expand the latest develop- 
ments in science, art, music, medicine, 
mechanics, construction, transportation 
— indeed, everything that is new or im- 
portant. They employ the best techni- 
cal writers, the best descriptive writers, 
the best specialists, the best writers of 
fiction. They include all important top- 
ics treated by the magazines and other 
periodical literature. They almost in- 
stantly transfer to their columns the 
important information contained in new 
books. Our best newspapers are quite 
as well written as are the magazines and 
the books. It is useless to say they are 
not, for their more ambitious and influ- 
ential articles are prepared with pains- 
taking care and largely by the same per- 
sons who are contributing to the maga- 
zines and are writing the books. 

I can see that this latter-day newspa- 
per development is likely to increase, 
rather than diminish, with the result 
that the public will read little else than 
the newspapers; indeed, the reading of 
newspapers is even now beyond all com- 
parison with the reading of any other 
publications. The new book of which 
fifty thousand copies are sold is called 
very successful, of which one hundred 
thousand are sold is called a wonder, of 
which two hundred thousand are sold 
phenomenal. Yet a million and a half 
newspapers are printed in this city every 
morning, and nearly two millions every 
afternoon, and nearly three millions ev- 
ery Sunday. In America millions of per- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 49 

sons who do not read more than five or 
ten books a year read two or three news- 
papers every day. 

Even as years of experience and study 
and labourious, patient application have 
solidified and perfected the practice of 
the law and of medicine, have made firm 
and substantial the developments of elec- 
tricty and mechanics, and have solved 
the problems of transportation and great 
business, so the making- of newspapers 
is settling down to a strong substantial 
practical basis. In all seriousness I be- 
lieve that the Saturday and Sunday news- 
papers are supplanting other literature, 
and will continue to do so yet the more, 
and I foresee a Golden Age of the Ameri- 
can newspaper, founded on honesty of 
utterance and common-sense of conduct, 
and sustained and encouraged by the con- 
fidence and the good will of the people. 



HUMAN INTEREST REAL 



But in Defining It, Many Great Au- 
thorities Differ. 



Human Interest! There. That is the 
way the editor of Leslie's begins his edi- 
torials. I've always wanted to try it 
myself, but the people who buy para- 
graphs seem to think Sleicher has a 
vested right in the exclamation point. 
Having put it over for the first time, let 
us digress briefly, after the fashion of 
Uncle Toby's nephew Tristram. 

Once upon a time, as the story books 
say, many years before Alexander Ham- 
ilton drew up the articles of the first 
New Jersey corporation, long before life 
insurance, copper, and Standard Oil fur- 
nished material for muckrakers, or peo- 
ple began devoting themselves to vari- 
ous kinds of "uplift," a band of forty 
men who might have become Captains of 
Industry had their promising careers 
suddenly terminated by a woman. She 
found them, one by one, in a tight place, 
cornered the oil market, brought that 
necessary commodity to the boiling point, 
and a few moments later it was all over. 
They hadn't even time to endow a few 
universities. Their misfortune may be 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 51 

traced directly to the fact that a middle- 
aged business man, whose mind was prob- 
ably occupied with the latest ticker quo- 
tations from the Produce Exchange, could 
not remember to say "Open Sesame" at 
the right moment. Corn, wheat, bar- 
ley, all had been active that day, and 
there had been practically no trading 
in sesame, yet that momentary forgetful- 
ness resulted in his ruin and death, and 
eventually brought the same fate upon 
the forty promising young business men 
he had sought to despoil. All his indus- 
trials and certificates, and all the stocks, 
bonds, and gilt-edged securities of the 
forty, went to Ali Baba, who was in no 
way distinguished above his neighbours, 
except that he did not forget to say 
"Open Sesame," and to say it at the right 
time. 

Similar forgetfulness of an individual 
has influenced the progress of the race 
at various times, nay, has even had its 
effect upon the physical world. Every 
child in kindergarten knows that if the 
proprietors of a certain salt-making ma- 
chine had not forgotten to say "hocus 
pocus" at the critical moment, they could 
have stopped the synthesis of sodium 
chloride before their ship sank, and then 
the ocean wouldn't be salty. No self- 
respecting conjurer of the Middle Ages 
could possibly have gotten along in his 
profession without the word "abracada- 
bra"; thousands of healers are doing bus- 
iness to-day with entire satisfaction to 
themselves on the simple phrase "sub- 
conscious mind" ; Government, once based 
on "a square deal," now guarantees a 



52 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

"new freedom," and every trade and pro- 
fession has its own peculiar catchword 
or catch-phrase. At the Church of St. 
Croesus the rector recently preached a 
brilliant and forceful sermon in develop- 
ing the thought "Salvation is free," while 
an announcement in the current issue of 
his Parish Visitor called attention to a 
ten per cent, advance in pew rentals. 
Gentlemen whose sworn duty it Is as 
officers of the court to thwart the laws 
seized with avidity a few years ago upon 
the expression "brain storm," and with- 
out such useful substantives as "la 
grippe," "malaria," and "biliousness," the 
medical profession would have to aban- 
don the use of placebos in curing imag- 
inary ills. 

Having thus established the potency, 
the frequency, the high importance of 
the catchwords of the day, without 
which none may hope to penetrate the 
editorial arcanum, the writer may 
be pardoned for attempting to elucidate 
the meaning of a phrase, knowledge of 
which is indispensable to every literary 
aspirant, which is ding-donged into the 
ears of every hopeful suitor of the 
muses, which neither the editor of the 
woman's page nor of the children's de- 
partment may hope to escape — "Human 
Interest." Here endeth the digression. 
The Lesson for the Day is writ: 

The class concerned is not a small 
one. Everybody has some story to tell, 
and everybody has a lingering ambition 
to get it into print, and it is because 
of the steady stream of manuscripts 
which pour into the publishing houses 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 53 

in every large city that Government is 
able to stand the annual loss on second- 
class matter, for everybody's story comes 
and goes at letter rates, and is only sec- 
ond class when published. 

Be it understood that what follows is 
treated from the hack writer's point 
of view — that of a poor orphan boy, with 
nothing between himself and the Charity 
Organisation Society save a typewriter 
and a few reams of paper — who must, 
therefore, sit up and take notice of the 
latest whims and foibles of the Man at 
the Desk. 

The full force of those awful words 
had never struck our hack writer until 
he had occasion to visit the venerable 
Henry Mills Alden, editor of Harper's 
Magazine. His business was to sub- 
mit the scenario of a Christmas feature, 
with illustrations. If you have never 
met Mr. Alden, it may be well to tell 
you that he is one of those exquisitely 
fine gentlemen of the old school whose 
perfect courtesy makes even the rejec- 
tion of a manuscript an agreeable af- 
fair. Mr. Alden had promised a definite 
answer on the article by August, provided 
he received the copy by May 1. But let 
our afflicted friend continue the narra- 
tion of the interview in his own lan- 
guage: 

"I was delighted with my reception, for 
I had gone into his room in fear and 
trembling. You see, when I was a boy, 
I used to think I would rather be Henry 
Mills Alden than President of the United 
States, and I am by no means sure that 
I don't feel that way still. He had been 



54 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

kindly and sympathetic. He had been 
interested. Judge, therefore, of my hor- 
ror when, as I was bowing myself out 
of his sanctum, this distinguished man 
of letters called out to me: 

" 'Chuck it full of human interest; 
that's what we want' " 

The effect on our poor friend was sim- 
ply maddening. He said that he could 
not remember how he ever got down 
those circular stairs in the courtyard, but 
he fancies he must have bowled over at 
least two typewriter girls before emerg- 
ing on Franklin Square. 

When he came to my rooms, I poured 
him out a glass of soothing syrup, and, 
to ease his mind, permitted him to tell 
the whole sad story. It seems he had 
left the secluded editorial rooms of a 
Brooklyn family newspaper to sell pure 
literature to magazines and newspapers 
in New York, and had met with some 
success. In order to fill in spare time, 
he had apprenticed himself to the fore- 
man of a newly opened encyclopedia fac- 
tory. 

"What we want," said the foreman, "is 
human interest. Every article, no mat- 
ter whether it is on Calculus, the Hydro- 
static Paradox, Sanscrit, or Metaphysics, 
must be crammed full of human interest. 
Write like Arthur Brisbane. Never mind 
about accuracy — we've a lot of cheap 
specialists to attend to that. Start with 
a name, then an active verb, and make 
it breezy." 

Human interest was rubbed into our 
poor hack writer in that encyclopedia fac- 
tory until he could feel it oozing out 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 55 

again at every pore. It sounded above 
the noise of the typewriting machines, 
even above the commands of the publish- 
er addressed to his subscription agents. 
It illuminated the walls in large letter- 
ing. In short, he imbibed human in- 
terest with each breath of murky atmos- 
phere, until in the course of a few weeks, 
he would doubtless have collapsed, had 
not the encyclopedia factory collapsed 
first 

Then came a period of sweet, refresh- 
ing rest. He engaged his spare hours 
in reading copy on a commercial or bus- 
iness man's newspaper. After the toil 
and hustle of the encyclopedia factory, 
he seemed to have entered a land of 
lotus-eaters. The happy days rolled by 
without event, but after he had been 
there a couple of weeks, the chief of the 
copy desk suddenly exclaimed, in tones 
of alarm: "Here's a human interest 
story." 

"Kill It," replied the city editor, "or 
you'll lose your job." 

During the remainder of his service 
there, the hateful term was never used, 
save with such unqualified and unprint- 
able terms of execration as did his soul 
good. Sometimes, however, it reached 
him through the mails. He sent a para- 
graph to Ldfe. 

The editor of Life attacked him sav- 
agely for only enclosing a two-cent stamp 
instead of a stamped and addressed re- 
turn envelope, and suggested that he 
was desirous of sketches possessing hu- 
man interest 

He sent an article to a Sunday edi- 



56 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

tor showing the comparative cost of 
building a battleship in the navy yard 
and by private contract. The editor, who 
said this lacked human interest, thought 
he might be able to use a story telling 
how many people could be killed at a 
single discharge by the battleships Con- 
necticut and Louisiana, both using their 
primary batteries at point blank. 

These things had not made him pes- 
simistic, he said, but just before Tie 
called on Mr. Alden he had received a 
regretful note from the associate edi- 
tor of a popular weekly, returning some 
flower photographs "because the old man 
says there is no human interest in flower 
pictures; that there's no action to them," 
so the term had finally gotten a bit on 

his nerves. 

Finding my young friend somewhat re- 
lieved after having unburdened himself 
regarding this haunting phrase, I sug- 
gested he ought to fortify himself by 
learning just what human interest means, 
and that any of a dozen or more edi- 
tors would gladly give him a definition. 

Next day he returned, saying he had 
been refused information by four maga- 
zine and seven newspaper editors, and 
then handed me the following state- 
ments: 

Henry Sherman Adams, editor of The 
Spur: "Nothing of the kind is permitted 
in our editorial rooms." 

The Sunday editor of a yellow news- 
paper: "When the elevator boy sees 
the bulletin of a Supplement story, and 
says: 'Gee, I'll have to get that paper/ 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 57 

I have struck something with human in- 
terest." 

John Palmer Gavit, managing editor 
of the New York Evening Post, admitted 
that his definition wasn't original, but 
gave it for what it was worth: "There are 
two elements, either of which assures 
Human Interest to a story — Sex and 
Money. If they are combined, the re- 
sult is a first-page spread — except in the 
Evening Post. 

"Seriously, I should say that 'Human 
Interest' applies to those facts and re- 
lationships which 'hit a man right where 
he lives'; those things which touch or 
appeal to him in his personal capacity, 
which make him put himself in the other 
fellow's place. Skill in treatment of the 
matter might give 'human interest' to 
an article about the psychology of the 
Dinosaur; only a few writers could do it, 
however." 

Prof. Robert Emmet MacAlarney, of 
the Pulitzer School of Journalism, some- 
time city editor of the Evening Post, the 
Mail, and the New York Tribune, gave it 
as his opinion that Human Interest and 
Local Colour might be used as synony- 
mous phrases, but that Human Interest 
also implied a story of personality with 
a touch of emotionalism. 

Royal J. Davis, who tells a class of 
hopeful young men at New York Uni- 
versity how to write editorials, when he 
isn't writing them himself, said: 

"Human interest is that element in a 
story that causes it to appeal to the 
reader's heart rather than his head." 

A chiel, who chanced to be present while 



58 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

Mr. Davis was thus clearing up the whole 
question, ventured upon the irreverence: 
"Human interest is best exemplified by 
the man who hews to the line." Not un- 
naturally, he added a plea for anonymity. 
J. Ranken Towse, who ought perforce 
to know, because for more than forty 
years he has sat in the seat of the scorn- 
ful as melodrama and all kinds of drama 
have been played, gave this as his com- 
ment on the discussion: 

aKovoicrd' hv rod Orjptov avrov. 

I said: "Don't be so easily discour- 
aged. Try again. Go to Chester S. Lord, 
managing editor of the New York Sun, 
If any man on earth knows what human 
interest means as applied to journalism, 
he should." 

A week later our friend came back, 
looking younger and more vigorous than 
I had seen him in months. 

"Mr. Lord said he didn't care to give 
a definition offhand," he remarked, "but 
added that if he could frame a good one 
by night, he would mail it to me. He 
hasn't done so, and as I know him to ' 
be a man of his word, I am greatly en- 
couraged to find he doesn't know any 
more about human interest than I do." 

Taking up the matter myself, I asked 
a lawyer friend to define human inter- 
est for me. 

"Are you serious?" 

"Never more so in my life." 

"Then give me time to think." This is 
what he thought: "Human interest, as 
attaching to any object, is that which 
attracts the attention of every person." 

My next victim was a dancing mas- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 59 

ter. He said: "Human interest is that 
which interests me, and should, there- 
fore, interest all mankind." 

Perhaps the dancing master's defini- 
tion is the very thing we have been seek- 
ing. Human interest may mean a mil- 
lion things, but to every Man at the 
Desk it is that which interests him, 
and should, he thinks, interest all man- 
kind. "Interpreted in this way," said 
I, "human interest seems to afford a 
pretty fair test of the merit of a con- 
tribution, provided the editors have not 
been standardized to such an extent that 
they all think alike on any given sub- 
ject." 

"Well, they haven't as yet, glory be," 
replied our friend the hack writer. 



MAKES VERSE TO ORDER 



Saponaceous Poet Illustrates His 
Surprisingly Simple Process. 



The unusually large attendance at a 
special meeting of the Amalgamated Pro- 
tective Association of International Joke- 
smiths, New York Local, held last eve- 
ning, may be easily accounted for. The 
subject, "A Practical Talk on Machine- 
Made Verse," was attractive in itself, 
while the eminence of the speaker — Prof. 
Petrie Villon Pettingell — was beyond 
question. For the past ten years Pro- 
fessor Pettingell has been poet laureate 
to one of the largest soap factories in 
America, during which time his poems 
have appeared in all the leading maga- 
zines, handsomely and appropriately il- 
lustrated. It may be stated without ex- 
aggeration that no author of the day has 
been so persistently sought after by the 
publishers. To have captured one of his 
verses suffices in itself to give a gold- 
mark rating, and it is said that when 
Edward Bok read his last contribution to 
the Ladies' Home Journal, which occu- 
pied a full page, and saw the check in 
payment, he wept with joy. 

There's nothing ethereal about the ap- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 61 

pearance of this distinguished poet He 
is, in fact, robust and hearty, florid with 
good living, alert, despite his 320 pounds 
avoirdupois, with the insinuating man- 
ner of a popular clergyman blended with 
the dignity and firmness of a banker 
while turning down a loan. His attire 
was "rich, not gaudy," but such as to 
reflect credit upon his own taste and the 
skill of his tailor. After listening blandly 
to the eulogistic remarks of the Chair- 
man in introducing him, Professor Pet- 
tingell plunged directly into his subject. 

"Not posterity, but the generation in 
which you were born; not antiquity, but 
the men and women of to-day — these, 
gentlemen, if you please, should be your 
study and your reward. Why dig into 
history for material? Isn't history being 
made all about you every day? Can you 
cash the reward of posthumous fame in 
an automobile? Let's be practical men. 
Let's find what the world is demanding 
to-day, and then let's supply that de- 
mand at the very highest profit to our- 
selves. Don't go mooning about, waiting 
for inspiration. The almighty dollar is 
good enough inspiration for any bard of 
to-day. Don't waste time when you have 
a subject, worrying about such trifles as 
iambics, pentameters, dactyls, and spon- 
dees. Get busy. Don't pull your hair out 
and squirm around like a small boy with 
colic because you can't find a word that 
suits you. The first word is always the 
best word, unless it's at the end of the 
line, and then, perhaps, you'll have to 
consult your dictionary of rhymes. 

"Machine-made verse, my fellow-toil- 



62 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

ers, has not yet reached perfection, but 
it has already had a marked effect upon 
the trade. There's Bliss Carman declar- 
ing that poetry is a luxury which he 
can't afford to produce. Of course, he 
can't. Poetry — real poetry, mind you, 
the kind Bliss Carman and I want to 
write and can't afford to, is unprofit- 
able. Would you like to sell such a 
manuscript as 'Paradise Lost' for $40, 
or would you prefer to receive $5 a line, 
like my colleague, the laureate to King 
George? We use the same method, I 
assure you, and neither has a moustache 
to conceal his lip — there's no magic about 
it." 

Seizing a piece of chalk, Professor Pet- 
tingell turned to the blackboard and drew 
a series of horizontal lines, which he in- 
tersected with perpendicular bars at reg- 
ular intervals. "I am now," he remark- 
ed, talking as he worked, "preparing an 
enlarged copy of a telegraph blank. As 
a struggling young poet, I always wrote 
on telegraph blanks to save white paper, 
which, by the way, was much cheaper 
then than now, and I advise you to do 
the same. Here, you observe, we have a 
given number of lines with a given num- 
ber of other lines, meant by the tele- 
graph company as a convenience in 
counting words. Fix the chart in your 
mind, count your feet in the same way, 
and you are making progress. The rest 
is easy." 

Facing his audience again, Professor 
Pettingell requested the joke smiths to 
write down on slips of paper topics for 
improvisation in order that he might 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 63 

demonstrate his method of working-. "You 
will understand," he continued, "that 
where one writes constantly on one 
theme, facility in composition grows, and 
this will be an excellent test, since I 
trust no gentleman will suggest any- 
thing- frothy, that is to say, saponaceous. 

"Something optimistic in dialect is re- 
quested," read the professor, as he drew 
a slip of paper from the secretary's hat. 
"Good. No dialect specified. Better 
still. Here we go," and while he talked, 
he worked away at the blackboard: 
"Let's get an irregular meter as appro- 
priate to the crudity of dialect verse, 
say. verses of five lines; first and sec- 
ond, eight; third and fifth, seven; 
fourth, four; second and fifth to rhyme." 
While talking he had rubbed out all but 
six horizontal lines on the blackboard, 
leaving the number of spaces to each 
line as he had stated. 

"Always try to get away from the or- 
dinary, the too obvious," the speaker re- 
sumed, "but make everything simple and 
homely. Everything's in the title. Ever 
hear of a Cadjun Parmer? No? Arouses 
curiosity, doesn't it? Then it's a good 
title. We'll call this, if you please, gen- 
tlemen, 'The Cadjun Parmer,' and you 
will observe that, as there is only one 
absolute rhyme needed, we best get it 
ready for each verse, the very first 
thing. Evangeline and green seem to 
hang together pretty well, so we'll put 
them down. How's that?" 



64 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

The poet stood aside, and this is the 
way the blackboard looked: 



























E 


van 


Re 


line 






































green 



Rapidly filling the spaces with sylla- 
bles, he completed the first verse in 
ninety-seven seconds, and then, repeating 
the process, evolved the subjoined speci- 
men of machine-made verse in fifteen 
minutes and three seconds, according to 
Barney's stop-watch, borrowed for the 
occasion: 

T.HE CADJUN FARMER. 

I once knowed a Cadjun farmer 
In the Land o' Evangeline, 
Where roses and oranges 
Mingle their breath, 
And the grass is al'ays green. 

A queer old duffer, brown with toil, 
'Ceptin' where he was gray with age — 
,Nigh as mild as the climate, 

Kind as the soil — 
Never seen him in a rage. 

Talkin' one day 'bout Beauregard, 
Who lived down jest around the bend, 
Shoulders bow'd which had been starr'd, 

Waitin' fer taps, 
And neaTin' his earthly end; 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 65 

Goesipin' lies was told o' him 
Which nobody, now, would believe, 
Till my old Cadjun friend rose 

Up in defence : 
"Pierre, I t'ink, is deceive." 

Only reason he could advance 
May not seem convincin' to you, 
But, to recall it is sweet, 

When knockers meet ; 
And to me it still rings true : 

"I dunno Gin'ral Beauregard, 

Mais, ma cousin spik well o' heem." 

Hammers make an awful din — 

When I buts in — 
I al'ays "spik well o' heem." 

Having rubbed out the last of these 
remarkable stanzas from the blackboard, 
Professor Petting-ell rearranged the lines 
which he was pleased to refer to as the 
"muse's tiled floor," and selecting an- 
other slip from the hat, announced that 
he had been requested to write two 
verses on a domestic theme, suitable for 
filling a stick and a half at the bottom 
of a column. 

"This is too easy," said the professor, 
and putting on the rhyming final words 
for the first verse, which he said should 
have eight lines, alternating ten and 
eight feet, he paused long enough to say: 
"Domestic verse is a very good sort. 
Keep away from mother, however, for 
if everybody works but father, mother 
is certainly overworked. Something 
about children is sure to go. Those who 
haven't any are sure to want some, and 
those who have will be consoled by the 
knowledge that the very people who want 
them most haven't any. Let us work 
out the thought along those lines," and 



66 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

turning again to the blackboard, Profes- 
sor Pettingell rapidly filled in the vacant 
spaces for syllables with his chalk, the 
result being: 

SPOILING THE CHILDREN. 

Working at forging or riveting plate; 

I'm all the time thinking of toys. 
When I get home, there's my wife at the gate, 

In the midst of a group of boys. 
Lots of nice playthings I whittle and carve, 

Of the sorts most youngsters like beet; 
Wife's just like me, for I think that she'd starve, 

Ere denying a child's request. 

The neighbours' little folks come and go — 

We keep them as long as we may; 
And their parents complain: "We spoil them so." 

Adding, "Too much kindness don't pay." 
But we know for all that, they don't mean it — 

They dote on their own little elves ; 
Still, I sometimes think they're sorry, a bit, 

That we have no children ourselves. 

"'A limerick on polities'? Really, gen- 
tlemen, I am surprised," said Professor 
Pettingell, as he drew another slip from 
the hat. "Of course, when it comes to 
anything as easy as a limerick, and on 
politics, no machine work is necessary. 
I've promised to respond to a toast at 
the Sphinx Club dinner, and my auto- 
mobile is waiting now, but I'll give you 
your limerick while I'm getting on my 
togs," and as he was slipping into his 
dust-coat and adjusting his goggles, the 
great man declaimed: 

THEODORUS LOQUITUR. 

I won't run for President, 

No, not in any event — 
Unless I foresee 
They'll nominate me 

When the Wilson boom is spent. 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 67 

A rising- vote of thanks was extended 
to the saponaceous bard as he left the 
back room, and the delegates cheered him 
enthusiastically. In the brief discussion 
which followed, the delegate from Yon- 
kers remarked that he was reminded of 
his college days, when he used to sit un- 
der the great elm tree, with H. Flaccus 
in his fist, and meditate on the poetic art 
— it was all so different. 

The member from the Brooklyn Press 
Club said that he thought there were 
several jokesmiths in the New York lo- 
cal who could turn out better verse, 
though they mightn't have as much of 
a drag with the publisher, not being con- 
nected with the soap business. He had 
more to say, but the Chair stopped the 
sound of his hammer with the gavel, 
declaring the meeting adjourned. 



THE CRITIC CONFESSES 



Choice Bather than Necessity Drives 
Him Toward Music. 



Music critics, unlike musicians, are 
made, not born. The man born a poet 
cannot help falling into verse any more 
than Mr. Wegg could. Bobby Burns, 
who had no education to speak of, Byron, 
who had too much, the late Bloodgood 
Cutter, and all their kind, itched like mad 
until their thoughts were set down on 
paper. Schubert wrote immortal melody 
atop a beer barrel in a Vienna cellar. 
From Bach to Wagner, through the long 
list of the tone poets, all wrote just be- 
cause they couldn't help it. The air, 
the opera, the symphony, kept humming 
through their heads, and the only relief 
came in inscribing melody and harmony 
on ruled paper. 

With music critics it is quite different. 
An eminent authority on baseball may 
have found it necessary to pad out his 
space string in winter by taking up a side 
line; or the same motive may have actu- 
ated a distinguished special writer on 
yachting. Such a genius as Berlioz be- 
came a critic in order to feed the divine 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 69 

fire of his inspiration, finding it impos- 
sible to buy the fuel with music. I, who 
am not a genius, became a music critic 
because I like to hear good music, and 
being a newspaper writer, should other- 
wise have had neither time nor money to 
indulge this taste. If I could write a 
good book, I would not write book re- 
views. If I could write a good play, I 
Wouldn't write dramatic criticism. But as 
between writing editorials, subject to the 
policy of the paper and suggestions from 
the business office, or police court news 
assigned by the city editor — between that 
and getting as much money by writing 
about the things one likes, there isn't 
much choice, is there? Some critics, you 
see, are made by force of circumstance 
rather than by divine inspiration, or by a 
desire to elevate the standard of taste, 
or to pose as authority. 

It may be I take the role of music 
critic, which I have played for fifteen 
years, too unseriously. If so, there are 
enough of my colleagues having a high- 
er opinion of their own importance to 
tone up the collective average. Indeed, 
I fancy that in the little room at the 
Metropolitan reserved for critics there 
might be found a double quartet to 
chorus the opposite view, forte, animato. 
maestoso, con fuoco; and it is well that, 
it should be so. I fancy the man who 
looks upon his department as the most 
important of any publication and upon 
himself as the most important person- 
ality in any such department, will do 
his very best to bolster up this mistaken 



70 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

estimate. I know a society editor af- 
flicted with this delusion; but he works 
so hard that he cannot enter a restaurant 
without spreading- out a bundle of "copy" 
between the dishes at table. 

At the risk of making this an apology, 
as well as a confession, I venture to ex- 
press the hope that I may some day have 
the means to enjoy the best music with- 
out need of telling three hundred thou- 
sand or more readers why; whether 
Carubonci had tears in his voice; how 
Madame Hemp-Farrier looked and acted; 
whether the second soprano was off key; 
the basso dependent upon the prompter; 
the conductor too fast or too slow, ac- 
cording to actual stop watch and met- 
ronome; how the lights were managed; 
whether the audience was large and ap- 
preciative or otherwise, and whether 
the music was good, bad, indifferent, and 
why. 

Frankly, I have never either written 
or read any music criticism which seemed 
to me of great value. At best it is one 
man's opinion — that of an expert, if you 
will; but the verdicts of experts are 
frequently reversed by public opinion, 
the court of last resort for all workers in 
the arts. I have never complained that 
Hofmann doesn't understand the soft 
pedal, that Paderewski has too much 
rubato, that Rosenthal is too muscular. 
It has seemed to me that these gentlemen 
do the best they can, and I love to hear 
them, not to lecture them. And when 
my good colleagues are overheard at the 
chop-house, telling how they slated Herr 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 71 

This and Madame That, how Signor 

S is coming in for a roast along 

with M. F , I think of the little mis- 
takes we ourselves have made. 

I recall with delight the kind letter I 
received from a singer who had been 
featured at a concert I reviewed, and of 
whom, knowing her voice and songs full 
well, I had said some pleasant things. It 
informed me that she would doubtless 
have justified my praise had she not 
been called away from town by the ill- 
ness of a relative, and forced me to ad- 
mit I had been drinking Rhenish with the 
manager when she should have been, ac- 
cording to the programme, captivating 
her audience. It is fresh in my mind 
how the newspaper then having the larg- 
est circulation in New York printed an 
elaborate review of the wrong opera, 
some years ago, written and signed by 
an eminent American composer who had 
got his matter in type in advance, but 
had neglected to go to the performance, 
and could not well know that the bill 
had been changed at the last moment. I 
remember a concert of last season where 
an aria from an unknown opera by an 
unknown composer was on the pro- 
gramme, and the critic of an afternoon 
paper remarked next day, in all serious- 
ness, that this opera ought to have a 
complete performance, as the aria showed 
genuine talent, wholly oblivious of the 
fact that the soloist had substituted "Ach 
Du mein holder Abendstern" ! 

But there is one thing to be said in 
favor of music criticism as a trade, cer- 
tain of the musicians and music journals 



12 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

to the contrary notwithstanding: there 
is no bribery of critics. Managers have 
either done me the honour to assume I 
cannot be bought, or that my opinions 
are not worth purchasing. In an honour- 
able career, which is, I trust, yet far from 
its close, only once have I been tempted 
(this really begins to look like a con- 
fession), and then I fell. At the d<§but of 
a new singer I neglected to comment 
either upon voice or method, confining 
myself strictly to justifiable enthusiasm 
over personal beauty, elegance of cos- 
tume, and judicious programme-building. 
My friends, who were her friends, had 
taken me, a lonely Bohemian, into their 
home for dinner. I had dined well, a 
habit I have when occasion presents it- 
self, and the daughter of the house took 
advantage of post-prandial good humour. 
She offered, on my promise not to "roast" 
the singer, to bake me another pumpkin 
pie, similar to that I had enjoyed at 
dinner, and send it to the office. Mea 
culpa! And the crime thus publicly con- 
fessed, I hope for forgiveness, and prom- 
ise to sin no more. 



JOKE'S ORIGIN TRACED 



Point in Ethics Settled for Conduc- 
tors of Coljroms. 



Canned jokes were discussed from the 
point of view of mercantile ethics at the 
last session of the Amalgamated Protec- 
tive Association of International Joke- 
smiths, New York Local, which has 
lately been in correspondence with the 
Boss Publishers' Association regarding 
certain old material alleged to have been 
foisted off as this year's crop. The 
publishers wished to reserve the right 
to relabel and repack old goods for the 
consumer, denying the right of the joke- 
smiths to work off old cans unless they 
were registered with the date of pre- 
vious publication. 

"A joke," said a well-known jobber, in 
the course of the animated discussion, 
"has no father. Of course no self-respect- 
ing workman would give Joe Miller a 
place in his scrap pile in these days, but 
I insist every man has a right to take 
his material where he finds it. 

"If people absolutely demand anec- 
dotes of warriors and statesmen, I claim 
the right to dress up any old tale out of 
Plutarch or Herodotus to meet the mar- 



74 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

ket, and the same is true of yarns for 
the press agent. There is a wealth of ma- 
terial to be had in biographies of de- 
ceased stars which would go infinitely 
better than the loss of diamonds, milk 
baths, or fake mash letters. 

"The wisdom of Marcus Aurelius An- 
toninus, dressed in the homely dialect of 
backwoods Illinois, serves admirably for 
Abraham Lincoln, and I lately sold a 
splendid nature story on bee culture out 
of the agricultural poems of P. Vergilius 
Maro. Suppose this new label rule had 
been in force in the time of our lament- 
ed colleague, W. Shakespeare. Could he 
have written 'The Comedy of Errors' 
without the earlier comedy of 'The 
Menaechmi' ? 

"Didn't he swipe some of his best plays 
from Italians, and didn't Boccaccio him- 
self plagiarize from the Greek, and would 
the Greeks themselves have even known 
how to write if they hadn't stolen their 
alphabet from the Phoenicians? I submit 
to my fellow-laborers that the world has 
been laughing and weeping over stale 
material since Eve first asked Adam if 
her fig leaf hung straight, and that since 
no man can hope to tell a story wholly 
new, the $1,000 cash prizes are properly 
awarded to those who tell them best." 

Cordial applause with which this out- 
burst of eloquence was greeted indicated 
that the speaker had proved his case. The 
discussion which followed threw new 
light on the mother-in-law joke and re- 
vealed the interesting fact that certain 
writers famous for quotations of the 
classics wear out each year three sets of 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 75 

Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" and 
two of Young's "Night Thoughts," while 
Roget's "Thesaurus" is replaced quarter- 

"If the gentlemen will permit," said a 
delegate from the Brooklyn Press Club, 
"I should like to place on record an in- 
stance of justifiable plagiarism." 

Permission being accorded, he then 
read the following anecdote, which on 
motion was placed among the archives 
as exhibit B, to be used in case of liti- 
gation with the boss publishers: 

"Tennessee has 'gone dry' — you 
wouldn't have thought that of her, would 
you?" a representative from that glo- 
rious old Commonwealth recently re- 
marked, sadly. "But it's a fact; you can't 
buy whiskey anywhere in the State. 

"But, after all, maybe it isn't such a 
hardship," he continued, with an attempt 
at cheerfulness. "Whiskey isn't what it 
used to be — folks are in such a hurry 
these days that they will take anything 
and gulp it down. Wasn't that way when 
I was a young fellow. 

"I remember that on one occasion a 
dealer in Memphis had got in a sample 
barrel and invited the Mayor and the 
City Judge to try it and give expert 
opinions on its quality. The Mayor pick- 
ed up his glass and sipped it, smacking 
his lips. 

" 'Ah ! That's pretty good, but — er — 
there seems to be a slight taste of iron 
about it — what do you think, Judge?" he 
said. 

"The Judge allowed the amber liquid 
to flow smoothly down his throat. 



76 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

"'Well, Colonel,' he said, 'I can't de- 
tect iron, but the odour of leather is un- 
mistakable.' 

"They argued for a while, and then the 
dealer had the contents of the barrel 
carefully strained, with the result that 
they found that, in some way, a leather- 
headed upholsterer's tack had gotten into 
the barrel. They certainly demanded 
good whiskey in those days," the Repre- 
sentative concluded. — [Harper's Weekly. 

"Do I object," the gentleman from 
Brooklyn continued, "because one of my 
brothers has revamped a story I pub- 
lished eleven years ago? Certainly not. 
I glory in it. 

"I will do the same to-morrow with 
one of his jokes, if I find he has ever 
written anything as good, as sparkling, 
as original as this story, which I will now 
relate in its original form, merely pre- 
facing it with the statement that Proctor 
Knott was then in the public eye, Mr. 
Blackburn was a United States Senator, 
and Mr. Carlisle, Secretary of the Trea- 
sury. 

"Proctor Knott had just received a 
barrel of especially fine Bourbon whis- 
key, and knowing John G. Carlisle and 
Joe Blackburn prided themselves on their 
knowledge of red liquor, invited them 
to his home to broach the barrel. Gov. 
Knott drew a decanter of the stuff from 
the wood with his own hands and placed 
it, with glasses, before his admiring 
friends. 

"They sniffed and tasted and smacked 
their lips. Mr. Knott anxiously awaited 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 77 

the verdict. Mr. Carlisle spoke first. 

" 'Hand-made, sour-mash, copper-dis- 
tilled, Governor,' remarked the distin- 
guished son of Kentucky. 'Very delicious 
quality, and, I should say, about forty- 
three years old.' 

" 'You're right as to the process, John,' 
observed the Senator, holding his refilled 
glass to the light in a critical manner. 
'I should say it's full forty-four years 
since that licker came from the still- 
house.' 

" 'But the quality, gentlemen?' said Mr. 
Knott, who knew they were about right 
so far. 

"Blackburn and Carlisle each drank 
off a big hooker and filled up again. 

" 'Governor/ said the Secretary of the 
Treasury, 'I am sorry to have to say it, 
but this otherwise perfect article has a 
slight flavor of iron rust.' 

"'Impossible!' said the Governor, 'I 
just drew it from the wood myself.' 

" 'I see what you mean, John,' said the 
Blue Grass Senator, 'but if I'm not mis- 
taken, the flavor is rather that of lea- 
ther.' 

"Gov. Knott was indignant. He knew 
the liquor was good, and he knew the 
guests were wrong as to flavour, but 
right, or nearly so, in other respects. 

"Neither of his distinguished guests 
would retract his criticism, however; so 
as the decanter was running low, Mr. 
Knott invited them to go to the cellar 
with him, where he would draw off all 
the whiskey before their own eyes, and 
thus convince them that it had not come 
in contact either with leather or iron. 



78 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

"Accordingly they descended to the 
lower regions, where the barrel was ex- 
amined. It had been distilled before the 
passage of the internal revenue law, and 
a certificate from the first collector for 
the Louisville district showed its age to 
be exactly forty-three years and six 
months, while it was really hand-made, 
copper-distilled, sour-mash corn whis- 
key. But at the bottom -of the barrel an 
old rusty carpet tack with a leather head 
was found. 

"This, gentlemen," went on the dele- 
gate from Brooklyn, "I consider one of 
my best original stories, and it is a mat- 
ter of pride and pleasure with me that it 
still passes current." 

"I should like to ask the gentleman a 
question." 

The speaker this time was a foreman 
in the encyclopedia factory at Newark, 
who was present as a guest. 

"Proceed, sir," said the Chair. 

"Has the gentleman ever read 'Don 
Quixote'?" 

"Not lately." 

"May I read an extract from a volume 
I am taking home to my little boy?" 

Permission being granted, the guest 
from Newark read as follows: 

"Sancho Panza (Part II, Chap. XIII) 
explains his skill in distinguishing wines 
by saying that he is descended from two 
famous tasters, of whom he relates this 
story : 

" 'They gave to these two some wine 
to taste out of a hogshead, asking their 
opinions of the state, quality, goodness, 
or badness of the wine; the one of them 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 79 

proved it with the tip of his tongue, the 
other only smelt of it. The first said that 
that wine savoured of iron; the second 
said, rather of goat's leather. 

" 'The owner protested the hogshead 
was clean, and that the wine had no kind 
of mixture by which it should receive 
any savour of iron or leather. Notwith- 
standing, the two famous tasters stood to 
what they had said. 

" 'Time ran on, the wine was sold, and 
when the vessel was cleansed there was 
found in it a little key with a leathern 
thong hanging at it. Now you may see 
whether " 

At this point half a dozen of the dele- 
gates claimed the recognition of the 
Chair, but before any had been recog- 
nized a frowsy-headed young man wear- 
ing a white apron entered and remarked: 

"Gents, I am sorry to disturb youse, 
but they's a new roundsman on this here 
beat, and the old man says, says he, 
'Lights out at midnight till we gets next,' 
and that goes." 

This announcement precipitated an 
immediate adjournment, but it is under- 
stood that the matter is to be brought 
up again at the next meeting. 



BECOMING A PUBLISHER 



Salesmanship More Important Than 
Knowledge of Printing. 



"Are you a college man?" 
"University of Weissnichtwo, '05." 
That seemed to satisfy the questioner, 
for the question wasn't propounded un- 
til the interview had lasted fully fifteen 
minutes; hence a B.A. could hardly havo 
been a prerequisite. But it didn't quite 
satisfy the interviewer, who wanted a 
job but who didn't want to get it under 
false pretences. 

"Have you a preference for college- 
bred men?" the interviewer asked. 

"Only because of one thing," was the 
reply. "They don't, as a rule, display 
any more ability or energy than any 
other class, and often they are less in- 
telligent in business matters, but it is 
none the less a fact that they know how 
to carry themselves, to make a good 
appearance, and they like this sort of 
thing better than the confinement of an 
office." 

This sort of thing happened to be 
peddling an expensive edition of a book. 
The advertisement which had led the 
young man to the publishing house said 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 81 

nothing about book peddling, but had 
merely held out the offer of a chance 
in the publishing business, with "quick 
promotion, if merited." 

More subscription books are printed 
in New York every year than in all the 
other American cities together, although 
there are many subscription publishing 
houses, in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, 
and minor cities, and not less than 20,- 
000 agents are employed in disposing of 
this class of merchandise in New York 
alone. It is a skilled profession with a 
few, and a last resort for those out of 
work, peddling books, and it pays or it 
doesn't pay, according to the tact and 
energy the individual may possess. 

The manager of the house with the 
expensive book was careful to explain 
that the work hadn't come from the 
printer as yet, but they were taking or- 
ders as fast as they could, having one 
complete volume to show, with a chance 
of getting out the remaining seven with- 
in the month. He wasn't presenting the 
ordinary proposition, he said. Not at all. 

There were houses which expected a 
man to go from house to house within 
a certain territory, and report on each 
with the accuracy of a census taker. On 
such a piece of goods as they had exclu- 
sively that would be a waste of time. 

It would only be necessary to inter- 
view persons whose names were arrang- 
ed alphabetically upon an easy route, 
and who, having been chosen because 
of their interest in literature and art, 
would be sure to accord the agent a 
pleasant reception. No danger of being 



82 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

ordered out of the house or having the 
dogs sent after you if you represented 
this house. No, indeed. That might 
happen if you allied yourself with some 
of the fake concerns down the avenue, 
but certainly not here. 

Profits? My dear sir, that would de- 
pend entirely upon your own talents. The 
last book they had put out, which wasn't 
nearly as good a seller as this promised 
to be, had drawn them the very pick of 
the canvassers. 

Many men and women had cleared $100 
to $150 a week, and they hadn't been 
killing themselves at that. Personally he 
should never advise any one to work 
more than five hours a day. After such 
a stretch a man seemed to lose some- 
thing of the magnetism which was the 
secret of the book agent's strength. 

He would venture to say that a man 
absolutely new in the business ought to 
be able to earn $15 the first week, al- 
though when he entered the publishing 
line himself he made that much the first 
day. 

The interviewer might be a trifle dense, 
he confessed, but he couldn't see just 
how peddling books would fit him for 
advancement in the publishing business. 

That objection,, he soon learned, was 
puerile. No man could master the details 
of so intricate a business except by be- 
ginning at the bottom. 

That wouldn't be at the printer's case, 
because books were now printed from 
machine-set type, and there was no 
chance for any mature human animal to 
enter this trade, which was restricted by 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 83 

the unions, even if the publishers had 
anything to do with typesetting and 
printing — which as a rule they didn't. 

Obviously the man who had learned 
how to peddle books was the best quali- 
fied person to teach others how to do so, 
and the publishing business in these days 
was largely a matter of selling books. 

There was but one other objection the 
applicant had to offer. He confessed that 
he was too modest and retiring to com- 
pete with such book agents as had in- 
vaded his home from time to time; be- 
sides which, he had never been able to 
make an impression as a talker. 

Merely a bagatelle, these notions were, 
so the manager said. As far as the flow 
of language was concerned, there was 
no occasion to worry. 

They had a nice little "spiel" ready in 
pamphlet form which could be quickly 
memorized and which supplied all the 
oratory necessary. As for the cheek, 
that would quickly come. 

It all depended upon the mental atti- 
tude assumed. Here's the attitude for 
agent, man or woman, who would be 
successful, and it might be Mary Baker 
G. Eddy's advice to salespeople of all 
sorts and conditions: 

"I've got something to sell that you 
really need, and if I can make you see 
how badly you need it I'll be doing you 
a favour, besides pocketing any commis- 
sion." 

The morning paper had given still an- 
other address of a publisher who was in 
need of an assistant. This time it was a 
matter of complete indifference to the 



84 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

manager whether the applicant had been 
through college or not. What he wanted 
was a man who could do things, who was 
accustomed to exercise authority over 
others and make himself useful around 
the office. 

"There'll be a little preliminary train- 
ing first," he remarked, urbanely. "The 
easiest way to find if a man is fitted to 
command is to see whether he will obey. 

"Now, I've got an entirely new propo- 
sition. Nothing like it has ever been 
started. 

"If you go into a man's house while he 
is away from home and tell his wife that 
you have a set of books costing $50, she'll 
tell you in nine cases out of ten that her 
husband must be consulted before she 
can do anything. That means another call 
and a waste of time, and time is money. 

"If you say 'Here is something your 
children absolutely must have if you want 
them to keep up with their studies in 
school,' she'll say pretty much the same 
thing. That's right where you clinch mat- 
ters. 

"You reply: 'Madam' — always say 
'Madam' — 'would you stop to ask your 
husband whether you might buy a news- 
paper or a glass of soda water? Of course 
you wouldn't. Very well. Here's a weekly 
publication that will cost you just the same 
number of pennies you are now throwing 
away on your newspaper.' 

"Then you open your folder. Turn the 
leaves over rapidly until her eye is struck 
by a picture, and you've got her. 

"In the advertising matter which you 
will have read and committed to memory 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 85 

you will have all sorts of information 
about that picture. You can tell what cel- 
ebrated gallery it is from, who painted it, 
what it is worth, and what it is about. 

"If you don't happen to remember the 
descriptive matter, you can turn it off. Let 
her ask you about it first, and then lose 
the place. Turn the pictures over again 
rapidly until you have found one you do 
know about and fire off your facts about 
that one. 

"She is sure to be impressed. Then if 
one of the children happens in, the thing's 
done. All children love pictures. 

"Show a few coloured plates and the 
mother will say to herself: 'Well, it's only 
a matter of a few cents, and if hubby 
doesn't like it I'll cut off the newspaper 
until it is paid for/ You can make her 
sign your order, and you get away before 
she has time to change her mind." 

"But suppose she says the children have 
too much home-work already?" 

"That's nicely covered in this mimeo- 
graphed circular. This tells you to dwell 
upon the fact that this is an age of spe- 
cialization and that the routine mapped 
out in the public schools is on so extensive 
a scale that it's quite impossible for a 
child to keep up, and then you show how 
this publication aids in history, in geogra- 
phy, and it's easier than if she hadn't 
raised the objection. 

"If anybody ever says why she doesn't 
want to buy, you've got her sure. You 
can answer every objection faster than 
she can give it and the only chance she 
has to escape you is to keep still." 

Perhaps it isn't quite right to tell trade 



86 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

secrets, but then it isn't quite right, on 
the other hand, for employers to adver- 
tise for one kind of help when they want 
another ; so the ethics of this little revela- 
tion of how the festive book-agent works 
his little game, aided and abetted thereto 
and paid therefor by the publisher, will 
average up about right. 

One thing seemed pretty clear to the in- 
terviewer after three hours of enlighten- 
ment, and that was that, even if some of 
the agents did clear $100 to $150 a week, 
their energy, their patience, their keen 
insight into human nature, and an equal 
amount of leg work would probably bring 
them the same financial return in any 
other line of work. 



LITERARY GOLDBRICKS 



Jokesmiths Discuss Agencies' Selling 
Terms, but Are Interrupted. 



Gold bricks were the theme at the last 
session of the Amalgamated Protective 
Association of International Jokesmiths, 
New York Local, a gentlemen's agree- 
ment having been at last effected with 
the Boss Publishers' Association regard- 
ing the matter of canned jokes, which 
had long been in controversy. 

In tfie slang of the workshop, the gold 
brick is a bright and sparkling witticism 
in prose or verse in special demand for 
filling out odd corners and the gaps be- 
tween the end of one article and the top 
of the next page in magazines. Gold 
bricks are a natural byproduct of the 
jokesmith's trade and fetch an average 
market price of a dollar each, although 
some of the Boss Publishers readily pay 
two dollars, and if the gold brick is ac- 
cepted in connection with a suitably 
drawn comic picture an extra dollar is 
added for the artist. 

Gold bricks, again, are divided into two 
classes — those which will stand the acid 
test and those which will not. The spe- 
cial phase of the question discussed was 



88 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

whether it was advisable to dispose of 
the gold bricks through agencies han- 
dling such articles — gold-brick agencies, 
in fact. 

At the suggestion of the Chair, several 
of the delegates went in turn to the 
blackboard and inscribed gold bricks cull- 
ed from the foreign press and adapted 
to the American market. From the col- 
lection of specimens so made a few are 
reproduced: 

It is said that modern discoveries in 
physiology prove apples are an excellent 
brain food, the phosphoric acid which 
they contain restoring vitality and en- 
ergy. 

Heavens! There is nothing new in that 
theory. It was solely with a view of 
giving Adam new ideas that Eve plucked 
the first apple mentioned in history. 



A celebrated actress was in the midst 
of her toilette when the maid interrupt- 
ed her to ask: 

"What color will madame have her 
hair to-day?" 

"Black. I am going to a funeral." 



A notorious counterfeiter on trial be- 
fore a German court: 

"Prisoner, have you anything further 
to say in your defence before sentence is 
passed?" 

"Yes, your Honor. I wish to remind 
the Court that on all pieces of the queer 
of my manufacture the portrait of the 
Kaiser is most flattering." 



It was announced that these and other 
gold bricks had been freshly translated 
from famous European publications, and 
that the delegates who had picked them 
out at odd moments from the scrap heap 
were desirous of disposing of them at a 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 89 

net price per gross f. o. b. Reports of 
the sub-committees on the investigation 
of gold-brick agencies were then called 
for. 

"In accordance with instructions from 
the Chair," said a representative of the 
German Press Club, "I entered into cor- 
respondence with the Literary Trust of 
Indianapolis, Ind. Having omitted to use 
either office or club stationery, the Trust 
had no means of knowing that I have 
been making a poor but honest living at 
the jokesmith's trade for twenty years, 
and it sent me some beautiful neat type- 
writing circulars describing the huge 
emoluments of journalism as a profes- 
sion, and sought to teach me by mail 
how to become either a journalist, a poet, 
an advertising man, or a playwright. 

"A small fee would be charged in ad- 
vance, but as I began to get on to the 
wrinkles of the craft they would give me 
occasional assignments and buy my work 
at a fair market price, so I would be paid 
while learning. 

"I wrote again to inquire the current 
rate for gold-bricks, and was informed 
that they only bought from those taking 
their regular courses and paying in ad- 
vance. Then they began to flood my 
mail with pamphlets of testimonials, ap- 
plication blanks, interviews on the profits 
of authorship, and other follow-up let- 
ters, so I wrote inquiring how much they 
would charge to teach me how to write 
plays like David Belasco, Theodore 
Kremer, George M. Cohan, and Hal 
Reid. 

"They undertook to teach me in a year 



90 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

for $15 in advance. I have written again, 
saying that on second thought I would 
rather manufacture plays like those of 
George Bernard Shaw or Henry Arthur 
Jones, but as yet I have received no 
answer." 

"It is my privilege to report an inter- 
view," said the delegate from Long Isl- 
and City, "with the gentlemanly man- 
ager of the Consolidated Literature Com- 
pany of New York. I found him in the 
third story front hall bedroom, which 
he and a stenographer have converted to 
business use by the installation of three 
chairs, a desk, a file cabinet, and recom- 
mendations from eminent writers. 

"I did not waste his time with ques- 
tions, but took such literature as he had 
ready and bowed myself out. The Con- 
solidated Literature Company is describ- 
ed in its own booklets as representing all 
of the literary periodicals and publishers 
of this country, gathering material for 
them from all sources. Fees for plac- 
ing manuscripts are $1 for 4,000 words 
or less, $2 for one between 4,000 and 
10,000, and $5 for each longer manu- 
script, but it will give its services to 
two short poems for the fee of $1. 

"Besides, the C. L. C. has professional 
advisers under the direction of a literary 
expert, gives helpful criticism at a mini- 
mum of $2, and does typewriting. There 
is nothing in its prospectus, however, to 
indicate that the C. L. C. sells gold- 
bricks, and I think we may therefore 
eliminate it from consideration." 

"I was assigned to visit the Hurrah 
Syndicate," said the Brooklyn Press Club 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 91 

delegate. "This syndicate, according to 
the booklets which I brought away on 
my first visit, charges $5 per annum 
Cor membership, 20 per cent, on sales, 
and promises at least one assignment a 
month to all who are accepted as mem- 
bers. 

"Shortly after my visit I received a 
lovely lithographed letter with my name 
written in by typewriter, in which a sad 
tale was related of the syndicate being 
obliged to turn down orders for lack of 
material, and urging this as a reason 
why I should send in my application at 
once. There's a note on the application 
saying that it must be accompanied by 
cash, but I suppose the syndicate wants 
material more than money. 

"I went in and was informed that the 
syndicate was selling its gold-bricks to 
other syndicates and deducting the 20 
per cent, commission. 
"'Have you got a pull?' 
" 'No/ said the manager. 
" 'Then why can't I send in the gold- 
brick myself, and take a chance, thus 
saving that 20 per cent., to say nothing 
of the $5?' 

" 'You can,' said the manager, 'but 
sale on commission is all we pretend 
to do, and it's an irksome job, as you 
know/ 

"In view of the facts ascertained by 
myself and my colleagues on committee, 
I venture to suggest that we pass up 
the gold-brick agencies and establish a 
headquarters in Barney's back room. The 
20 per cent, can go into a kitty, and there 
ought to be enough at the end of the 



92 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

month to pay Barney for handling the 
mail, and even to buy a few original 
packages after the discussions on meet- 
ing nights." 

"Does the Chair understand the gentle- 
man to put his suggestion before the lo- 
cal in the form of a resolution?" 

"I move you, Mr. President, that the 
matter go over until next fall," said the 
spokesman of the Yonkers group, "and 
that, before taking action, every member, 
that he may realize the momentous na- 
ture of such an undertaking, be required 
to familiarize himself with the history 
of the Blue Pencil Club." 

Several gentlemen were on their feet 
in a moment to debate this question, but 
the frowsy-headed young man with the 
apron appeared and said: 

"Gents, they is a feller who used to 
belong has told Barney that his uncle is 
dead, and has left two rounds apiece for 
youse, sayin* as how he hopes fer to 
be excused from optrudin' his grief on 
youse." 

Under the circumstances a motion to 
adjourn, upon which there was no de- 
bate, was instantly put and carried. 



STORY WEEKLIES PASS 



Their Obit, Preceded by Philosophi- 
cal Thoughts on Ash Barrels. 



Most men of middle age who write for a 
living" have an Ash Barrel. Its contents 
may be chiefly the cinders of dead hopes, 
the fluffy ash of leading articles on pub- 
lic questions solved years ago, duplicate 
proofs of a story long forgotten, notes 
for essays never written, fragments of 
a play never completed; or even the sce- 
nario of a ballet, worked out to the last 
choregraphic figure. It is sure to be the 
receptacle for rejected addresses, and 
therefore an object of tender interest to 
the man, and of aversion to the woman 
who looks after him, whether she be 
mother, wife, or sister. Heaven bless her, 
whichever she may be, the evidence that 
any bit of scribbling has failed to bring 
its price is a source of annoyance, be- 
sides which the Ash Barrel is far from 
ornamental. Yet there are ample grounds 
on which it may be defended. It has 
happened more than once that some sud- 
den and belated success has made it 
worth while for the writing man to pass 
the entire contents of his Ash Barrel 
through a sifter, finely meshed, and the 



94 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

alchemy of the publishing trade has con- 
verted every bit of material thus re- 
covered into gold. Without an Ash Bar- 
rel the posthumous glory of a definitive 
edition becomes impossible. Without an 
Ash Barrel the orderly appearance so 
dear to housewives cannot be maintained 
in the home. Many other reasons might 
be given, but two will suffice, the senti- 
mental folly of the writing man, and the 
gentle tolerance of the woman. The 
sentimental folly of a man grows during 
vacations, the tolerance of the woman 
lessens. Thus the contents of a certain 
Ash Barrel had been sifted to a period 
no later than 1905, as shown by news- 
paper clippings and magazine articles, 
when a halt was called. There remained 
in the sifter, however, the manuscript 
printed below the dash, dating from 1906, 
and dealing with a class of publications 
once numerous, and including the Fireside 
Companion, the Ledger, and the Family 
Story Paper. Of these, as a second sur- 
vey of the field discloses, only the Family 
Story Paper survives. It is well provided 
with "copy," which will never be set, for 
it follows the custom adopted by its great- 
est rival of reprinting the fiction its 
readers liked a generation ago. The nice 
little old man referred to is no longer to 
be found at his desk. Even the desk has 
disappeared, for the Fireside Companion 
has ceased to exist, and the jocular book- 
keepers have found jobs elsewhere. 



A nice little old man was crouching 
over a big desk, well provided with paste 
pot, shears, and clippings. He wheeled 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 95 

around, looked up over a pair of heavy 
glasses, and under a pair of bushy eye- 
brows, startled by the question: 
"How is the market to-day?" 
"What market do you mean?" 
"Why, the fiction market, to be sure. 
Are you buying any 'thrillers' just now?" 
"Lord bless you, my boy, of course 
not. We've got it figured out that the 
same old stuff that held our grandmoth- 
ers and great-grandmothers entranced 
will be about as effective with the grand- 
daughters and great-granddaughters, so 
we aren't buying anything at all. Re- 
print of old stories, that's all our paper 
carries these days." 

It was sad news to the hack writer, 
who had come with an armful of manu- 
script, only to find he had wasted his 
time. Like a flash there came back to 
him a picture of his boyhood, when the 
Fireside Companion had enjoyed a great- 
er relative circulation than any weekly 
of to-day. An enterprising agent would 
pass through the village, scattering the 
publication broadcast at every door, and 
all the serving maids and children of the 
neighbourhood would take in the absorb- 
ing tales, sometimes as much as six or 
eight thousand words, to find, just 
as the hero or heroine had reached some 
seemingly inextricable entanglement, the 
legend: "This Thrilling Story of Real 
Life in a Great City to Be Continued in 
Our Next." The boy used to read these 
stories as soon as his sister Mary had 
finished them, which was, as a rule, about 
three hours after she had borrowed the 
paper from the cook. Some day he meant 



96 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

to write such stories himself, an ambition 
cherished until one day the Judge caught 
him with a copy. That copy the Judge 
carefully took up with the fire-tongs and 
placed on a bed of live coals. Leading 
his young hopeful to the library, he re- 
marked: "There, my son, are the works 
of Scott, of Dickens, of Cooper, of Dumas, 
of Hugo. Give them a trial, and if you 
don't like them, come to me and say so, 
and I'll try you with Paul de Kock and 
Catulle Mendes." 

Here was the boy in the sanctum sanc- 
torum of the great weekly which had 
fired his early literary ambition, only to 
be told "there was nothing doing." 

The Fireside Companion was published 
in a gigantic and hideous building to the 
north of the Brooklyn Bridge. In a 
counting-room on the top floor of this 
building where two bookkeepers told 
each other jokes out of last week's comics, 
the request was made for a moment's 
interview with the editor. 

"Who?" 

"The editor." 

"We ain't got none." 

"I don't know what you call him, but 
I want to see the man who publishes 
the Sea Side Library" 

"What for?" 

"I've a corking good French detective 
story, about 70,000 words, and I thought 
he might like to buy a translation." 

"Well, we ain't buying no new books. 
Sold the plates of all the old ones, and 
people put 'em out in new covers. Guess 
you won't find anything in town on the 
lines of the old Sea Side Library" 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 97 

In another building, formerly the home 
of a prosperous weekly of the kind made 
illustrious by such authors of "Old Cap 
Collier," Laura Jean Libby, and Bertha 
M. Clay, a Yellow Newspaper is in pos- 
session. There is something significant 
in this fact, as further investigation into 
the abandonment of this branch of the 
publishing industry revealed. 

"If you want to know what killed the 
story weeklies," said a novelist who for- 
merly wrote for them, "I can tell you in 
three words — the Sunday supplements. 

"Of course, there are Sunday supple- 
ments and Sunday supplements. Some 
of the newspapers established a high lit- 
erary standard for their Sunday feature 
pages from the first. These didn't in- 
terfere with the story weeklies at all, 
but others went right into their domain, 
offering for five cents not merely as 
much highly sensational blood and thun- 
der stuff, but occasionally a good story 
as well, and all the news. Some of the 
story weeklies had circulations reaching 
from 75,000 to 500,000, but the advertising 
business was revolutionised a decade ago, 
and the story weeklies failed to get next. 
I don't know why, exactly, but they 
never seemed to push this end of the 
business, which is the only one out of 
which a modern Sunday newspaper 
makes a profit, as it would lose money 
on its circulation with white paper at 
its present cost, even if it got five cents 
net on every copy sold; and the bigger 
the circulation, the bigger the loss. The 
story weeklies never had much advertis- 
ing, and what they had was chiefly of 



98 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

patent medicines, and mail-order con- 
cerns. Even these people dropped off 
to get into the great blanket sheets of 
the Sunday Yellows. 

"On top of the evolution in advertis- 
ing came the flood of cheap magazines, 
and then the story weeklies ceased to 
buy original matters. I don't know that 
the class of fiction in the 'popular* 
magazines is really any better, but it 
is tamer, and it always has a happy end- 
ing, in this respect resembling the fic- 
tion of the old weeklies. Virtue is al- 
ways rewarded, and the villain is always 
punished. It may be just that way in 
real life, but it's always so in the 'popu- 
lar' magazines, and I'll venture to say 
that no man who writes for money to- 
day would be foolish enough to submit 
any other kind of fiction to a publisher. 
Even Kipling had to attempt a happy 
ending for 'The Light That Failed/ 
didn't he?" 

Of course, the old-time story paper has 
been, to some extent, replaced by "li- 
braries of fiction," as well as by the 
Sunday Yellows, and the "popular" maga- 
zines, but the same old names, and 
the same old stories went for years to 
the remoter parts of the country, even 
though the literary activity of the au- 
thor had been cut short by death, as in 
the case of "Old Cap Collier," or mar- 
riage, as with Laura Jean Libby, who is 
living in Brooklyn on the interest of 
$500,000 earned by her tales of "heart in- 
terest" and writing for a newspaper syn- 
dicate. "Old Cap Collier's" estate realiz- 
ed something over $600,000, entirely ac- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 99 

cumulated by the sale of detective stories, 
some of which, by the way, are quite 
equal to those put out in more preten- 
tious form in these days. 

The "libraries of fiction" are managed 
on a slightly different basis. In order to 
get them through the mails as "second- 
class matter," they must be issued "at 
stated intervals," and the stated interval 
is usually a week. In this class come 
the flashy series which are the delight 
of the present generation of office boys 
and telegraph messengers. One popular 
author dictates to relays of stenographers 
in the upper room of a big building on 
Seventh Avenue, and generally has two 
or three stories in hand at once, changing 
from one to the other for relaxation. 
Sometimes he grinds out 80,000 or 100,000 
words this way in a week — but he writes- 
on salary, and the publisher owns his 
work. These "thrillers" are put up in 
compact form, convenient to handle at 
a desk, or to slip into the pocket if the 
boss comes prying about. There are any 
number of "libraries of fiction," but a 
feature of one and all is the front-page 
illustration, which is nearly always in col- 
ours. 

"It's easy money," an artist remarked. 
"Of course, a man isn't especially proud 
of having his name signed to this sort of 
thing, but when you can knock down $50 
for two days' work on a 'library of fic- 
tion' cover, you can afford to devote one 
day to loafing, and four more to 'art for 
art's sake.' The deuce of it is, there's 
a tendency towards standardization in 
art as well as in literature, and the pub- 



100 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

lishers seemingly prefer to buy an imi- 
tation of the work of some of the illus- 
trators who have already acquired na- 
tional renown, rather than give a fellow 
a chance to strike out something new for 
himself." 

It may be that the class of publications 
which have been described haven't much 
to do with either literature or art, but 
there's a demand for them passing all 
understanding of those outside the pub- 
lishing business. The good old days have 
gone, however, so far as the writers are 
concerned, and while the profits of the 
newer types which have replaced the 
"story weekly" are as great as ever, they 
go to swell the bank accounts of the pub- 
lishers, and there is no longer the op- 
portunity in "thrillers" for an ingenious 
author to accumulate half a million or 
more, as in a former generation. 



UNDER THE BLACK FLAG 



Describing a Cruise Under the Cele- 
brated Captain Barabbas. 



Piracy is dying, but not dead. In a re- 
cent interview with Naboth Hedin, in the 
Brooklyn Eagle, Pastor Wagner express- 
ed the belief that 1,000,000 pirated copies 
of his "Simple Life" had been sold in 
America. The young woman who trans- 
lated the book into English had received 
$2,000 for her work, he said, and a prom- 
ise of six cents on each copy sold. But 
the book, although covered by French 
copyright, was not protected by Amer- 
ican law, and he was not paid a cent by 
the original American publisher until 
John Wanamaker took up cudgels in his 
behalf. This publisher, who had sold 
some 200,000 copies, then agreed to pay 
Pastor Wagner ten cents on each copy 
sold thereafter, but the pirated editions, 
offered in cheaper form, supplanted the 
original American publication, so that 
his income on 1,200,000 books sold in 
America was practically nothing. The 
only profits worth reckoning were, he 
asserted, derived from royalties on the 
sale of 50,000 books in France. 

The Heathen Chinee has become the 



102 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

instrument of retribution against Amer- 
ican pirates, but, as sometimes happens 
in modern warfare, neutrals suffer no 
less than belligerents. Thus Ginn & Co., 
school-book publishers, flying the white 
flag, if ever a publishing concern did, 
have lost three argosies and five galleons 
off the coast of Shanghai. Since the over- 
throw of the Manchu dynasty there has 
been an enormous demand for education- 
al works of all kinds, especially for those 
printed in English. President Yuan Shih- 
Kai has been too busy to take up copy- 
right matters until recently, and, as the 
Chinese were printing books long before 
Xenophon and Caesar invented war cor- 
respondence, and have much skill in 
copying the manufactures of foreign dev- 
ils, enterprising native publishers have 
been "complimenting" Ginn & Co. by 
"swiping" freely. The significance of 
these words will appear later. The North 
China Herald estimates that American 
school-book publishers have already lost 
more than $500,000 through piracy, but 
expresses the hope that President Yuan 
will promulgate a copyright law to pun- 
ish literary thefts. Meantime, Ginn & 
Co. are seeking redress in the consular 
courts, and other American publishers 
have joined with them. 

Reference to law journals will show that 
piracy on a smaller scale is still by no 
means uncommon, but it is no longer re- 
spectable. The Incorporated Society of 
Authors, Playwrights, and Composers, 
with headquarters in London, and the 
Societe des Gens de Lettres, with head- 
quarters in Paris, have been labouring for 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 103 

a generation and more with a view of 
protecting the author in his literary- 
property, and while constant vigilance is 
still necessary, thinking people have been 
educated to the point of considering a lit- 
erary thief no better than any other kind 
of a thief. The American Copyright law 
of 1909 and the present British Copy- 
right act provide jail penalties for con- 
victed pirates, in fact, but I have been 
assured by one United States Attorney 
that such conviction is not possible in 
the United States in the Year of Grace 
1915. I trust he may be proven in error, 
but if the penal clause ever has been en- 
forced, I have no knowledge of it. There 
is ample material for another story on 
"Defects in the Copyright Law," and 
what I purpose here, after establishing the 
points that piracy is not dead and that it 
is no longer respectable, is to record the 
events of a six months' cruise as first 
mate on a pirate craft commanded by the 
redoubtable Barabbas, for such was the 
nom de guerre bestowed upon him by his 
crew. 

Some months after I had published my 
little encyclopedia of music, I received a 
flattering letter from Barabbas inviting 
me to call on him to discuss a larger 
work on the same subject, but along dif- 
ferent lines. I replied that my contract 
with the house issuing my work prohib- 
ited me from undertaking another that 
might conflict with it. He pointed out 
that no conflict of interests was possible, 
said he could obtain the consent of my 
publisher, and renewed his invitation. 

Before accepting it, I conferred with 



104 s SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

the "Drinking Partner" of the house that 
issued my book, showed him the letters, 
and asked him what he knew about Ba- 
rabbas. "The only man," he said, "who 
has been able to do business in his special 
line a score of years without bankruptcy. 
Discounts his bills, maintains good credit 
at the bank, lives up to a written con- 
tract, makes a lot of money. But tricks! 
Verb, sap." 

Why he should have warned me I don't 
understand, in the light of what happened, 
unless he was trying to live up to the tra- 
dition that the "Drinking Partner" must 
always be a good fellow, and square to 
everybody. 

"I am only an ignorant publisher," said 
Barabbas, "and so I plod along in my dull 
way, working at something until it begins 
to look good, and then I have to consult 
an Eminent Specialist like yourself. I 
know what I want, but I can't carry it 
out. I suppose it is more or less insult- 
ing for a publisher to talk finance to an 
author, but if you will forget your family 
pride for a moment, I would be glad to 
know, in the event that you have some 
spare time, how big an insult would be re- 
quired to induce you to interest yourself 
in my scheme?" 

The amount of the insult being fixed 
in this Gilbertian fashion, Barabbas in- 
vited me to luncheon. 

When the coffee was brought on, he 
poured about a thimbleful in a cup of hot 
milk, and remarked that he had enjoyed 
my conversation immensely. 

"Luncheons, to an ignorant publisher," 
he continued, "are more than meat and 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 105 

drink and recreation. I sometimes get 
$50 worth of information from an Emi- 
nent Specialist like yourself, and at a 
trifling cost, even when the Emi- 
nent Specialist has a pretty taste in 
wines." 

This frankness partly disarmed me. I 
took some material home and worked it 
into the shape he desired, gave him 
more information, and evidence of my 
pretty taste in wines, and received a stiff 
"insult" for my trouble. 

"I like your work," said Barabbas at 
parting. "It should make you famous, and 
if it doesn't, I will. As soon as you de- 
cide to drop that little magazine of yours, 
with its ridiculous name, I want you to 
come here to my place, and make your- 
self at home. I'm just sending through 
the press a large set of books, and there 
are two volumes I want you to take per- 
sonal charge of. Bring your Night Man- 
aging Editor to dinner with you to-mor- 
row, and we'll talk over the details." 

The Night Managing Editor gave it as 
her opinion that Barabbas was a fine 
Christian gentleman, a delightful host, a 
splendid raconteur, and just the sort of 
man for an erratic writer to tie up with. 

Next week I moved in and soon put 
two volumes through the press for him, 
and then, with the written consent of the 
"Drinking Partner," began to map out 
the great American encyclopedia, the 
thing people have been talking about for 
years, and which never will be printed 
because no publisher will spend the 
amount of money it would cost. 

Barabbas wasn't sure whether he want- 



106 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

ed me as Editor-in-Chief or Managing 
Editor, but he gave me a delightful old 
gentleman as an assistant, and left me 
to myself. 

He was keenly interested in the choice 
of material, and showed a marked pref- 
erence for English scholarship, especially 
of the non-copyrighted kind. 

It might have occurred to an Eminent 
Specialist about this time that wholesale 
piracy was being planned but for the 
wisdom of Barabbas. For example, a long 
essay published some years before by Sir 
Hubert H. H. Parry, Bart., seemed to fit 
into the scheme. 

"I think we'll 'compliment' Sir Hubert 
by republishing this," said Barabbas. 
"There's no risk in 'swiping' any essay of 
that date bearing only British copyright." 

"There's every risk that Sir Hubert 
might denounce you as a pirate," the Em- 
inent Specialist rejoined. "Besides which, 
I'll not be a party to such a transac- 
tion." 

"Very well," said Barabbas, "if you feel 
that way about it, I suppose instead of 
'complimenting* him we'll have to 'in- 
sult' him. How small an insult do you 
suppose he would accept, say £5?" 

"I think it ought to be doubled, and 
in guineas, not pounds." 

"Guineas for a Baronet, eh? Well, I'll 
make a note of it." 

Thereafter there was no more talk of 
"complimenting" or "swiping," and when 
Crowest, or Grove, or Streafc^ild, or Dun- 
stan, or any of a dozen other English 
writers was dissected and adapted for 
the American reader, out came the Ig- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION. 107 

norant Publisher's notebook, and the 
amount of the "insult" to be forwarded 
to him was carefully written down. In 
this way the Eminent Specialist un- 
wittingly gave the Ignorant Publisher a 
pretty clear idea of the cash value of 
every author dealt with. When it was 
proposed to use Dunstan's Encyclopedia 
as a whole, and add to it, the Eminent 
Specialist advised that a royalty be paid. 
Barabbas said he never did business on a 
royalty basis. Furthermore, as the book 
was the unprotected kind that any Amer- 
ican publisher could "swipe," the risk on 
royalty would be too great. It was agreed 
in this case that Dunstan's consent should 
be asked in writing and that he be 
offered an honorarium of fifty guineas. 

The work went along easily and 
smoothly, the gray-bearded assistant 
proved a delightful companion, and hard*, 
ly a day passed without a visit from 
some of the numerous hacks formerly 
employed by Barabbas. One of these 
gentlemen proved highly objectionable to 
Barabbas, with whom he had quarrelled 
over a bill. This petty detail had been 
forgotten by the hack, but not by the 
Ignorant Publisher. The hack was a 
minor poet of some distinction, and de- 
partment editor of a popular weekly. He 
may be called the Rev. Januarius John, 
S.T.D., because that wasn't his name. In 
the office he was known as "Jimmy for 
Short." 

"Jimmy for Short" had one failing not 
uncommon among the older type of lite- 
rary men. It caused him to retire from 
active work in his sacred profession, and 



108 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

to make rather frequent changes in his 
business address. His family were great- 
ly relieved when he accepted regular em- 
ployment on a weekly, because he had 
the excellent habit of taking his pay-en- 
velope home unopened. A fine talent for 
reviewing led him into evil ways, with- 
out their knowledge. Compensation for 
book reviews was not included in the 
weekly pay-envelope, but paid by check, 
and the books became the property of 
the reviewer, who might dispose of them 
ia a second-hand book store, if he so de- 
sired. 

Having visited a book store and sev- 
eral other places one afternoon before 
coming to see us, "Jimmy for Short" felt 
inspired to oratory. He had just finish- 
ed damning his publisher, our publisher, 
everybody's publisher, and pointing out 
horrible examples of injustice and op- 
pression, including all then present, and 
was saying, "Look at me; a gentleman 
and a scholar, a Grecian, if I may say 
so, a Latinist, and a poet, compelled in 
my old age to learn three modern lan- 
guages in order to gain a paltry "' 

when Barabbas entered. 

Of course the First Mate should have 
been supervising the work of the crew 
about this time, holystoning the decks, or 
preferably splicing the main brace, but 
Blackbeard when scuttling a ship was 
never more savage-looking than Barab- 
bas at that moment. He was so angry 
at the breach of discipline, as he after- 
wards called it, that he couldn't speak. 

"That man has never felt the divine 
afflatus," said "Jimmy for Short," as the 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 109 

Pirate disappeared down the main hatch. 
Soon afterwards he bowed himself out, 
leaving behind, however, inspiration for 
these Grecian lines, which he praised 
heartily some days later: 

Oh, Thou, who stain'd with juice of purple grape, 
Girded with skins of fearsome, savage beasts, 
And decked with garlands of sweet smelling herbs, 
Hast frolicked with the Graces, dancing and 
Loving through countless golden hours, Hear Me ! 
When at the feast the minstrel lyre is pass'd 
Thy praises in my heaTt I sing, but no 
Responsive voice swells through the air as I 
Caress the strings — Thy servant, Lord, is mute! 
And when the whirl of youths and maidens fair, 
Laughing before me skip, in vain their call; 
Though I would join them, dull and feeble is 
The clay wherein confin'd my spirit strives 
For freedom, and no measure may I tread. 
iBut, when the cup is fill'd and emptied, and 
I alone am strong, refresh'd — still in my 
Heart I sing Thy praises — dumb then the rest! 
What though the sea born Goddess came herself, 
Zone unloos'd, her amber tresses flying, 
Panting with love — should I desert Thee then? 
Never, Lord ! Still pouring from the goblet 
Thy full libation^ I quaff the rest, nor 
Other joys I seek, save but to serve Thee, 
Thy faithful flameh. Evohe Bacche! 

But such breaches of discipline were 
infrequent. The work drew nearer com- 
pletion, and discussion as to the nom- 
inal editors was resumed. The Eminent 
Specialist, holding to the terms of a let- 
ter from Barabbas, declined to permit the 
use of his name, either as Editor-in-Chief 
or Managing Editor, but was willing to 
become sponsor for a volume on Theory, 
provided he saw it through the press. 
This was agreed to, and the Eminent 
Specialist drifted to a Night Copy Desk. 

Proof on the Theory volume was so 



110 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

long in coming that he felt compelled to 
write Barabbas that he could not permit 
the use of his name, even on that vol- 
ume. And then he forgot books about 
music for a year or two, until one day 
he ran across the ten-volume work he 
had mapped out. 

The Ignorant Publisher had indeed 
omitted the Eminent Specialist's name. 
But he had obtained the plates of the 
Eminent Specialist's own encyclopedia 
from the "Drinking Partner," on pay- 
ment of $1,040, and had published it as 
the work of a Boston music critic! In 
the litigation that followed it developed 
that all the English authorities used had 
been "complimented," not "insulted." 



COST OF MAKING BOOKS 



Author's Risks Shown to Be Greater 
than Publisher's. 



Every man or woman who writes ought 
to know something- about the cost of 
manufacturing a book, if only for self- 
protection. If you are planning a house 
you have no difficulty in arriving at the 
cost of real estate, the market price of 
material and labour, and, if the estimates 
are carefully made and contracts carried 
out in accordance with the estimates, 
you know in advance what the total ex- 
pense will be, and may fix your rental 
or selling valuation accordingly. Esti- 
mating the cost of a book is far less 
difficult, although many publishers make 
a mystery of it, and of the risks they 
assume. In building a book you may 
begin by figuring the period of copyright 
and renewals on the basis of a ground 
rent. To write a work of given length 
requires a. certain number of hours or 
days, and each writer may determine the 
cost of production of his own manu- 
script. One clever re-write man on a 
New York newspaper can do six col- 
umns or eight thousand words nightly. 
Joseph Pulitzer thought 500 words daily 



112 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

a fair output for an editorial writer. 

Taking $10 a thousand words as the 
cost of producing "copy," the writer's risk 
in creating material for such a little 
volume as this would be $300. Please 
note, for a reason that shall appear later, 
in quoting the minimum magazine rate 
of payment for a manuscript, no allow- 
ance is made on behalf of the writer 
for overhead charges, rent, or machinery. 
None the less, he must pay the rent of 
a place in which to work, he must pos- 
sess some sort of mental machinery, and 
he can no more escape "overhead" than 
he can death or taxation. 

By economy in stock and binding 
which would not be apparent to the aver- 
age reader, this book could be manufac- 
tured for $150. The actual cost of the 
first edition of 1,000 was: 

Composition $26 

Electrotyping 32 

Paper and presswork 45 

Stamps and binding 90 

Total $193 

There's no mystery about it, you see, 
and the figures include paper, ink, and 
cloth. On the other hand, here is a sim- 
ple explanation of the reason so many 
publishers ride in automobiles of this 
year's pattern, while so many writers 
walk. Walking, of course, is the best 
of exercise for people of sedentary hab- 
its, but why restrict it to the creative 
class ? 

The publisher may deny that this 
manuscript represents a capital of $300, 
or that the cost of manufacture of this 
book can be kept inside $150, and he will 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 113 

say with pride that his imprint alone is 
worth more to the author than both fig- 
ures combined, for it represents years of 
honest endeavor, a great reputation, and 
the good-will of the trade — in other 
words, of the retail booksellers. 

This sounds well, but hear the words 
of Sir Walter Besant, written for the 
benefit of his fellow craftsmen: "How 
is it, then, that so many successes are 
made with the name of a new and quite 
small firm? The name of a firm on a 
title-page is worth exactly nothing to 
the general public; it carries no weight 
with the mass of readers; or if any, 
then there are fifty houses which carry 
equal weight. The public cares nothing 
who publishes a book; of all tradesmen 
the publisher is least regarded by the 
world." 

I was disposed to doubt Sir Walter's 
statement, but having tried an experi- 
ment, found it confirmed. I asked half 
a dozen patrons of a library who pub- 
lished the works of certain literary stars 
they had been discussing, without receiv- 
ing one correct answer. Then I asked 
my own bookseller which publishers the 
trade preferred to deal with. "They're 
all alike," he replied. "A book with us 
is merchandise, and the book that sells 
is the book we want to handle, regardless 
of who the publisher may be, and almost 
regardless of the author." 

"What, then, do publishers actually do 
for the majority of books?" I gladly 
credit both question and answer to Sir 
Walter Besant. "They put them through 
a mechanical process. This process in- 



114 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

volves spending a few minutes with a 
printer and a few minutes with a binder, 
arranging that they should be paid a 
certain time after the book is produced, 
in order to avoid paying any money ex- 
cept from the proceeds of the book." 

It is true that most publishers have 
neither printery nor bindery, and that 
they pay printers and binders by notes 
maturing after publication, leaving plates 
in storage with the printer, and sheets 
in storage with the binder, thus avoid- 
ing warehouse charges. But most pub- 
lishers will tell you their advertising ex- 
penses are enormous, their overhead ex- 
penses gigantic, their rent or taxes ex- 
cessive, their travelling men a burden to 
stagger philanthropy, their debtors on 
the verge of bankruptcy, their creditors 
demanding cash on the nail. These com- 
plaints, which most writers have heard 
from time to time, would indicate in- 
efficiency, if well founded. As a rule, 
they are not well founded. 

Publishers who have house organs ex- 
change advertising space on terms be- 
low their rate cards. Publishers having 
yearly contracts in an approved adver- 
tising medium get handsome discounts; 
and by every contract I have seen, the 
amount of advertising any book receives 
is fixed by the publisher. The over- 
head expenses are no greater in pro- 
portion for the publisher than for the 
writer or the book-seller, and ought not 
to be reckoned in the cost of publication. 
Publishing is, in fact, as set forth in 
the essay on "Becoming a Publisher," 
nothing out salesmanship, and the pub- 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 115 

lisher can afford to stand these charges, 
and still be cheerful. Let us see why. 
There are but three agreements in use 
in America, as between writer and pub- 
lisher: outright sale by the author to the 
publisher, publication at the author's ex- 
pense, publication on royalty. "Half 
shares," on which many a Britsh author 
has cut his wisdom teeth, are unknown 
here, and need not be discussed. 

In these enlightened days no writer 
sells his copyright at any price. There 
are too many rights involved. Any 
one of them may be more productive 
of cash than publication in book form, 
and writers who are wise will refuse to 
sign away the least of these rights with- 
out adequate compensation. 

Of course, the publisher who issues a 
book at the author's expense may look 
cheerful, for he has pocketed both cost 
and profits in advance. 

There remains to be considered the 
royalty basis of agreement between au- 
thor and publisher, and here let the 
author look to himself. He would do 
well before entering- upon a contract to 
consult "Forms of Agreement," which 
may be had by mail for a shilling from 
The Incorporated Society of Authors, 1 
Central Buildings, Tothill Street, West- 
minster, S. W., London, Eng. 

For publication on royalty of a book 
the size of this one the writer, we have 
seen, must risk $300 in work, and the 
publisher half that amount in manufac- 
ture. Let us say the royalty is 10 per 
cent., which would be the average, and 
the retail price of the book $1. Results 



116 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

on the sale of the first edition of 1,000 
would be not $100, but $90 to the au- 
thor, less than one-third the estimated 
value of his contribution to the under- 
taking, and pay below the space rate of 
any "metropolitan" newspaper in the 
United States. 

Let us assume that the publisher has 
spent $50 in advertising, which would be 
liberal on his part for so small a book. 
He has "presented* twelve copies to the 
author, reserved thirteen sample copies, 
given away seventy-five copies to re- 
viewers and others. He has sold 900 
copies either in his shop at $1 net, or 
through the trade at a discount which 
may amount to 33 1-3 per cent, on large 
orders. Let us assume the average price 
has been eighty cents. His account would 
stand : 

To cash receipts $720 

Less cost of mfg 150 

Less advertising bills 50 

Less royalty 90 

Profit on transaction $430 

On the later editions the author would 
receive his full $100 per M., but the 
publisher's gain would be greater, for, 
with the cost of type-setting, plates, and 
stamps eliminated, and maintaining the 
same rate of expenditure for printing, 
binding, and advertising, he would draw 
down approximately $500. 

To carry this pleasant speculation to 
a legitimate conclusion, let us imagine 
that this little book, instead of dealing 
with cold, hard facts, contained the pleas- 
ing kind of short fiction so many people 
are writing these days, and that the 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 117 

publisher had succeeded in putting over 
the form of contract approved by the 
late and unlamented American Publish- 
ers' Association, whereby the writer had 
divested himself of every right guaran- 
teed him by law except 10 per cent, 
royalty on book publication in the Unit- 
ed States. Instead of the meagre 2,000 
copies which is the fondest hope we have 
indulged in for this little book, such a 
collection of short stories might easily 
reach a sale of 50,000. In that case the 
writer might have received approximate- 
ly $5,000, but the cost of manufacture 
decreases as editions grow in size, and 
the publisher would have cleared more 
then $27,000 on the book, have royalties 
coming in from theatres and motion-pic- 
ture houses, and a few thousand dollars 
in ready cash from the sale of first and 
second-serial rights, and "sheets" to Great 
Britain and the Colonies. The Barber 
of Bagdad's brother could not reckon 
profits faster! 

Authors should insist on a sliding scale 
of royalties, rising with each thousand 
copies sold until there be a fair division 
of profits between producer and middle 
man, for the publisher at best is no 
more than that. And they must bear 
in mind that in a joint undertaking in 
which the manuscript represents twice 
as much capital as the cost of manufac- 
turing a book, the risk is chiefly the au- 
thor's. If the book fails, his investment 
is lost in the speculation. The publisher, 
however, still has a chance of recouping 
himself, by selling out the edition as 
"remainders," and is almost certain to 



118 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

recover his expenditures in manufactur- 
ing the book. And then he has the 
plates. Half a century ago a pirate in 
New York published a great English 
novel at a price which killed the sale 
of the authorized edition, and sold the 
book by tens of thousands. The pirate's 
heirs in settling his estate sold the plates 
to a perfectly respectable publisher who 
now prints from them at a profit, selling 
this novel to the trade, 750 pages in 10- 
point-type, 8vo. cloth, at a price which en- 
abled me to buy a copy for twenty-four 
cents. The reader may figure out the 
possibilities of sales of "remainders" and 
and of plates for himself, and then he will 
cease to pity the poor publisher for the 
risks he takes. The author's risk is un- 
avoidable, but the publisher has only to 
refuse a manuscript, and send it back at 
the author's expense, if he believes it in- 
volves a risk, and that is what he usually 
does. 



DEFECTS IN COPYRIGHT 



American Laws Don't Give Adequate 
Protection to Authors. 



There is a growing feeling among au- 
thors on both sides of the Atlantic, voiced 
with increasing frequency in their pub- 
lications, that a writer, whether English 
or American, should be entitled to the 
same protection of his interests and the 
same share in the income from his la- 
bours at home and abroad. To what ex- 
tent this feeling is shared by the publish- 
ers is less certain, but if it be assumed 
that they are far from being "the natural 
enemy of the author," their interest in 
international relations is less acute be- 
cause their pocketbooks have been less 
affected. The author's feeling is shared 
by R. R. Bowker, editor of the Publish- 
ers' Weekly, and author of the latest and 
most comprehensive work on "Copyright, 
Its History and Its Law." 

Answering a series of questions I put 
to him on behalf of the New York Eve- 
ning Post, and replying affirmatively to 
the proposition that authors of either 
country should have equal rights in 
both, Mr. Bowker, who was one of the 
framers of the Copyright act of 1909, 



120 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

said: "The manufacturing clause makes 
this impossible, and it should be repealed, 
the only difficulty being the mistaken op- 
position of the trades unions. In most 
other respects the law has worked out 
satisfactorily, and piecemeal amendment 
is rather dangerous. In my judgment," 
he added, "the tariff on books should be 
repealed so soon as the elements of 
book production are also relieved from 
tariff burdens." 

Authors' rights have undergone an evo- 
lution in recent years, for it has been 
discovered that, besides the profits which 
may accrue by reason of translation or 
by serial publication of a work before 
or after book publication, there are also 
to be considered dramatic rights, moving- 
picture rights, and, of perhaps still great- 
er value, foreign rights. It is matter of 
common knowledge that "foreign rights" 
as between English and American au- 
thors have acquired a cash value only 
since 1891. Prior to that time, when an 
English publisher found an American 
book to his liking, he helped himself 
freely, reprinting it in full, if he so de- 
sired, without compensating either au- 
thor or publisher. In so doing, he was 
following the example of the American 
publisher, who manifested an especial 
fondness for the works of English novel- 
ists, but would reproduce anything which 
gave promise of sale here. 

In vain were the protests of the author. 
If, as a Londoner, he picked out a New 
York publisher noted for fair dealing in 
order to bring out a "complete, authorized 
edition," there was nothing to prevent 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 121 

some pirate from underselling him in the 
American market, and it often happened 
that some pirate did. Recriminations be- 
tween the publishers were not less bitter 
than those between the authors of the 
two countries, but the publishers were 
the first to get together on some sort of 
working basis. Briefly, this was what was 
known as the "courtesy of the trade." If 
an American publisher pirated an Eng- 
lish book, and made a good thing out of 
it, he would send a small check to the 
English publisher. It worked both ways, 
of course, but distinctly to the disadvan- 
tage of the author, whichever way it 
worked, and it was far from being a sat- 
isfactory arrangement for the publishers 
themselves. It is only fair to add that 
there are publishing houses in both coun- 
tries which, even during the "dark age," 
never sullied themselves by such trans- 
actions. 

Out of this scandalous situation arose 
the American Copyright League, pre- 
sided over in turn by James Russell Low- 
ell and Edmund Clarence Stedman, and 
including among its warmest supporters 
George Parsons Lathrop, Mark Twain, 
Edward Eggleston, Richard Watson Gil- 
der, Robert Underwood Johnson, and 
George Haven Putnam. The Copyright 
act of 1909 was the crowning achievement 
of their labors, and, but for the manu- 
facturing clause already referred to, 
would speedily bring the United States 
into the International Copyright Union. 
Responsibility for this defect is fixed by 
the Bulletin of the Authors' League of 
America, in these words: "Although also 



122 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

working* for international copyright, the 
typographical unions, as well as a num- 
ber of Philadelphia publishers, were not 
able to act with the Publishers' and Au- 
thors' Leagues. It is due to their efforts 
that the provisions of the manufacturing 
clause were inserted in the bill." 

But, while the restrictions placed upon 
foreigners by this clause are such that 
the United States is still effectively de- 
barred from joining a copyright union 
based on reciprocity, and the 15 per cent, 
ad-valorem tariff on books acts as a fur- 
ther detriment to interests of authors, 
under the conditions now existing, both 
American and English authors may copy- 
right in each other's country, subject to 
certain restrictions, and the Colonial 
British market is becoming more and 
more valuable to Americans. In conse- 
quence, both the Authors' League of 
America and the Incorporated Society 
of Authors, Composers, and Play- 
wrights of Great Britain are urg- 
ing their members to insist on 
proper recognition of foreign rights 
in the royalty contracts offered them. 
Both organizations are also at pains to 
point out that it is not always wise to 
arrange with one's original publisher a 
contract for unrestricted foreign rights. 
Thus, according to the Author, which is 
the journal of the British Society, people 
in Australia and New Zealand have devel- 
oped a strong liking for American-made 
books and bindings, perhaps because they 
are brighter in display. At any rate, the 
preference is known to exist, and for this 
reason English authors who also publish 



SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 123 

in America are advised to retain their 
rights for Australasian publication, and in 
some cases, to reach that market through 
the American publisher. Canadians, on 
the other hand, prefer the more sombre 
British style of binding, and will buy a 
book more readily from England than 
from the United States. 

So vast has the market become, ac- 
cording to one observer, that a book 
which has barely paid expenses in Eng- 
land may sell at a large profit in Amer- 
ica, and do equally well in the South 
Seas. If the author has failed to protect 
himself in his royalty contract he may 
lose, under these circumstances, the re- 
sults of his labour, although the publish- 
er may be reaping a handsome income on 
an investment in cash much smaller than 
the author's investment in work. These 
hints as to Colonial rights are, of course, 
quite as valuable to the Americans as to 
the British author. 

In a discussion of contracts the Bulle- 
tin of September, 1914, already quoted, 
sums up the situation in these words: 
"If an American book has a fair chance 
of publication in a separate English edi- 
tion, under a contract with English pub- 
lishers, it seemed usually desirable to in- 
clude the Australian market in the Eng- 
lish contract. Otherwise, it seemed ad- 
vantageous to the author to convey the 
Australian rights, with the English (Unit- 
ed Kingdom) rights, to the American 
publishers with a view to their endeavor- 
ing to sell editions in those territories." If 
this summing up does not wholly reflect 
the views of the Author, it agrees in sug- 



124 SERIO-COMIC PROFESSION 

gesting that special arrangements for 
royalty payments should be made for 
each piece of territory contracted for. 

One American writer who has had ex- 
perience with book publication in Eng- 
land, as well as at home, expressed him- 
self as being thoroughly in sympathy 
with the views of Mr. Bowker regarding 
the repeal of the manufacturing clause 
in the Copyright act of 1909 and the 
removal of the tariff on books. Literary 
productions in English, he thought, were 
valuable wherever English was spoken, 
if valuable at all; and, with a sound in- 
ternational copyright and complete reci- 
procity in the matter of tariff, he be- 
lieved that both American publishers and 
American authors would be perfectly will- 
ing to take their chances in the Eng- 
lish market. The impetus given the pub- 
lishing business by the removal of all 
restrictions as to tariff and home manu- 
facture would, he was sure, so enlarge 
the output of books as to more than com- 
pensate for the loss that might result to 
the printing trade here by foreign com- 
petition facilitated by the lower foreign 
wage-scale. 

OPUS IV, AEVIA. 



fhi&lteijers' Snnountementsf 
THE RISE OF DENNIS HATHNAUGHT 



Life of the Common People Across the 

Ages as Set Down in the Great 

Books of the World 

By JAMES PHILIP McCARTHY. 

In this work the history of the strug- 
gles of the people throughout the cen- 
turies is sketched in an easy, familiar 
style, making facts more interesting 
than fiction. Out-of-the-way information 
seldom met with in ordinary books of 
history is set forth in entertaining style, 
and the whole constitutes a picture of 
the life of the people for more than 3,000 
years. 

Successively there are treated such 
subjects as compulsory labor or slavery; 
serfdom and feudalism; rise of the cities; 
trade development; crafts; wages; fac- 
tories; trades-unionism; socialism; syn- 
dicalism; feminism — as reflected in the 
works of historians, novelists, economists, 
poets, of all ages and nations. It fur- 
nishes the historic background so essen- 
tial to a comprehension of the economic 
history of mankind. Printed and bound 
in uniform style with "The Serio-Comic 
Profession," but double the number of 
pages. Price $1.50. 

William Marion Reedy, of Reedy' s Mir- 
ror, St. Louis, Mo., who read "Dennis 
Hathnaught" in the manuscript, said of 
it: "The style is wonderfully light and 
buoyant. I wish to congratulate Mr. 
McCarthy upon the very remarkable ex- 
tent of his reading." 

The Writers' Publishing Co. 
Brooklyn-Xew York, U. S. A. 



THE NEWSPAPER WORKER 



Designed For All Who Write, But Addressed 
Especially to the Reporter Who May 
Have Only a Vague Notion of the 
Aims, Scope, and Require- 
ments of His Profession 
By JAMES PHILIP McCARTHY. 

Dr. Talcott Williams, of the Pulitzer 
School of Journalism, declares that the 
instructions to the new reporter about 
the way to gather material for his stories 
constitute an original feature and are 
the best he has seen. 

Some copies of the original edition re- 
main on hand, and will be sold at $1 
net. The new edition will be $1.25 net, 
postage prepaid. 

Chicago Record-Herald: — Packed full 
of helpful hints and advice to writers, 
especially reporters. 

New York Sun: — Many an experienced 
reporter may derive useful hints from 
his advice. 

New York American: — If the power to 
write a fresh, clear and pat story 
for a daily newspaper can be ac- 
quired from any book it must be from 
the Newspaper Worker. 

Boston Herald: — A volume of unusual 
value. 

New York Telegram: — It contains com- 
plete analysis of all forms of news 
showing the points to cover and the 

The Writers' Publishing Co. 
Brooklyn-New York, U. S. A* 



questions to ask to glean information, 
and in addition to this, under appropriate 
headings, are grouped "hint words" that 
will be found invaluable to the writer. 
For example, if one is dealing with a 
murder, "The Newspaper Worker" not 
only shows just how to handle the case 
in bringing out the telling points, but 
furnishes carefully graded lists of words 
relating to passion and its development 
which cannot be other than helpful in 
facilitating writing and doing away with 
poverty of language. 

Another valuable section of the book 
relates to "Personal and Natural Descrip- 
tion." This is gotten up on a plan orig- 
inal with the author of "The Newspaper 
Worker," and the material is so arranged 
that, no matter how meagre one's vocab- 
ulary, the writer must be a dunce, indeed, 
if he cannot make use of it. Systematic 
instrutions for the describing of every 
sort and condition of man and all man- 
ner of natural scenes here await the 
eager writer. 

An illuminating chapter concerns the 
writing and editing of stories, setting 
forth the best methods of work employ- 
ed on the leading newspapers. The or- 
ganization and the work of the compos- 
ing and press rooms are not neglected, 
and there are instructive chapters on 
those little known arts, "Heading Writ- 
ing" and "Proof -Reading." 

Nor is the scientific side of the lan- 
guage overlooked. "The Newspaper Work- 
er" contains complete treatises on gram- 
mar and rhetoric as well as on verbal 
distinctions. The mass of information 
crowded into these pages is amazing, and 
the verbal distinctions appear to com- 
prise a digest of the best work of Rich- 

The Writers' Publishing Co. 
Brooklyn-New York, U. S. A. 



ard Grant White, Alfred Ayres, William 
Cullen Bryant, and other noted students 
of words. 

To the man that is seeking an educa- 
tion with no teacher save himself, "The 
Newspaper Worker" cannot be other 
tli an helpful. It contains a "key" to self- 
culture and the systematic and intelligent 
study of literature. 



PLAYS, PLAYERS, AND PLAYWRIGHTS 



A Survey of the Drama and Its Develop- 
ment in Every Age, and Among 
Every People 
By L,. J. de BEKKER. 

This book of more than 800 pages, 
royal octavo size, gives brief biographies 
of all the important dramatic authors, 
actors, actresses, and the stories of more 
than 150 of the world's greatest plays, 
information about all matters related to 
the stage, and will, it is hoped, prove a 
popular guide and reference book for 
the student and theatre-goer no less than 
to members of the theatrical profession. 
The arrangement is alphabetical, and a 
simple system of cross-references adds 
greatly to the convenience of those seek- 
ing information. The difficulty of ob- 
taining material for a final revision from 
abroad, owing to the World War, com- 
pels the postponement of publication un- 
til the autumn of 1916. 

The Writers' Publishing Co. 
Brooklyn-New York, U. S. A, 



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